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THOUGHTS 



EDUCATIONAL TOPICS 



INSTITUTIONS. 



BY 

V 



GEOKGE S. BOUTWELL. 



BOSTON: 
PHILLIPS, SAMPSON AND COMPANY. 



MDCCCLIX. 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1859, by 

GEORGE S. BOUTWELL, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 



STEREOTYPED BY 
HOBART AND ROBBINS, BOSTON. 



THE TEACHERS OF MASSACHUSETTS, 

WHOSE 

ENLIGHTENED DEVOTION TO THEIR DUTIES 

HAS 

CONTRIBUTED EFFECTUALLY TO THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING, 

2Cf)is Folumc 

IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED. 



G. S. B. 



CONTENTS. 



Page 
The Ixtrixsic Nature axd Valle of Learning, and its 

Influence upon Labor, 9 

Education and Cri3ie, 49 

Reformation of Children, 75 

The Care and Reformation of the Neglected and Exposed 

Classes of Children, 86 

Elementary Training in the Public Schools, 131 

The Relative Merits of Public High Schools and En- 
dowed Academies, ► . . . . 152 

The High School System, 164 

Normal School Training, 203 

Female Education, 221 

The Influence, Duties, and Rewards, of Teachers, . . . 241 

Liberty and Learning, 274 

]\Lissachusetts School Fund, 308 

A System of Agricultural Education, '. 339 



THE LNTRLNSIC NATURE AND VALUE OF LEARNING, 
AND ITS INFLUENCE UPON LABOR. 

[Lecture before the American Institute of Instruction.] 

Words and terms have, to different minds, vari- 
ous significations ; and we often find definitions 
changing in the progress of events. Bailey says 
learning is "skill in languages or sciences." To 
this, Walker adds what he calls " literature,'' and 
"skill in anything, good or bad.'' Dr. Webster 
enlarges the meaning of the word still more, and 
says, " Learning is the knowledge of principles or 
facts received by instruction or study ; acquired 
knowledge or ideas in any branch of science or 
literature ; erudition ; literature ; science ; knowl- 
edge acquired by experience, experiment, or obser- 
vation." Milton gives us a rhetorical definition in 
a negative form, which is of equal value, at least, 
with any authority yet cited. " And though a 
linguist," says Milton, " should pride himself to 
have all the tongues that Babel cleft the world into, 
yet if he have not studied the solid things in them, 

(9) 



10 Nature and Value of Learning. 

as well as the words and lexicons, he were noth- 
ing so much to be esteemed a learned man, as any 
yeoman or tradesman competently wise in his 
mother dialect only." — " Language is but the 
instrument conveying to us things useful to be 
known.'' 

This is kindred to the saying of Locke, that 
'' men of much reading are greatly learned, but 
may be little knowing." We must give to the 
term learning a broad definition, if we accept Mil- 
ton's statement that its end ''is to repair the ruins 
of our first parents by regaining to know God 
aright ; " for this necessarily implies that we are 
to study carefully everything relating to the nature 
of our existence, to the spot and scene of our exist- 
ence, with its mysterious phenomena, and its com- 
paratively unexplained laws. And we must, more- 
over, always keep in view the personal relations 
and duties which the Creator has imposed upon the 
members of the human race. The knowledge of 
these relations and duties is one form of learning ; 
the disposition and the ability to observe and prac- 
tise these relations and duties, is another and a 
higher form of learning. The first is the learning 
of the theologian, the schoolman ; the latter is the 
learning of the practical Christian. Both ought to 
exist ; but when they are separated, we place things 



Nature and Value of Learning. 11 

above signs, facts above forms, life above ideas. 
Law and justice ought always to be united ; but 
when by error, or fraud, or usurpation, they are 
separated, we observe the forms of law, but we 
respect the principles of justice. This is a good 
illustration of the principles which guide to a true 
distinction in the forms of learning. Of all the 
definitions enumerated, we must give to the word 
learning the broadest signification. It is safe to 
accept the statement of the great poet, that a man 
may be acquainted with many languages, and yet 
not be learned ; even as the apostle said he should 
become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal, if he 
had not charity, though he spoke with the tongues 
of men and angels. Learning includes, no doubt, a 
knowledge of the languages, the sciences, and all 
literature ; but it includes also much else ; and this 
much else may be more important than the enumer- 
ated branches. The term learned has been limited, 
usually, by exclusive application to the schoolmen ; 
but it is a matter of doubt, especially in this coun- 
try, upon the broad definition laid down, whether 
there is more learning in the schools, or out of them. 
This remark, if true, is no reflection upon the 
schools, but much in favor of the world. Those 
were dark ages when learning was confined to the 
schools ; and; though we can never be too grateful 



12 Nature and Value of Learning. 

for their existence, and the fidelity with which they 
preserved the knowledge of other days, that is 
surely a higher attainment in the life of the race, 
when the learning of the world exceeds the learning 
of the cloister, the school, and the college. 

In a private conversation, Professor Guyot made 
a remark which seems to have a public value. " You 
give to your schools," said he, " credit that is really 
due to the world. Looking at America with the eye 
of an European, it appears to me that your world is 
doing more and your schools are doing less, in the 
cause of education, than you are inclined to be- 
lie ve.'^ For one, though I ought, as much as any, 
to stand for the schools, I give a qualified assent to 
the truth of this observation. There is much learn- 
ing among us which we cannot trace directly to 
the schools ; but the schools have introduced and 
fostered a spirit which has given to the world the 
power to make itself learned. It is much easier to 
disseminate what is called the spirit of education, 
than it was to create that spirit, and preserve it 
when there were few to do it homage. For this we 
are indebted to the schools. Unobserved in the 
process of change, but happy in its results, the 
business of education is not now confined to profes- 
sional teachers. 

The greatest change of all has been wrought by 



Nature and Value of Leaminp:. 13 



o 



the attention given to female education, so that the 
mother of this generation is not compelled to rely 
exclusively upon the school and the paid teacher, 
public or private, but can herself, as the teacher 
ordained by nature, aid her children in the pre- 
paratory studies of life. This power does not often 
manifest itself in a regular system of domestic school 
studies and discipline, but its influence is felt in a 
higher home preparation, and in the exhibition of 
better ideas of what a school should be. And we 
may assume, with all due respect to our maternal 
ancestry, that this fact is a modern feature, compar- 
ativel}'', in American civilization. Female education 
has given rise to some excesses of opinion and con- 
duct ; but the world is entirely safe, especially the 
self-styled lords of creation, and may wisely advo- 
cate a system of general education without regard 
to sex, and leave the effect to those laws of nature 
and revelation which are to all and in all, and cannot 
permanently be avoided or disobeyed. 

The number of educators has strangely increased, 
and they often appear where they might least be 
expected. We speak of the revival of education, 
and think only of the change that has taken place in 
the last twenty years in the appropriations of money, 
the style of school-houses, and the fitness of profes- 
sional teachers for the work in which they are 
2 



14 Nature and Value of Learning. 

engaged ; but these changes, though great, are 
scarcely more noteworthy than those that have 
occurred in the management of our shops, mills, and 
farms. When we write the sign or utter the sound 
which symbolizes Teacher, what figure, being, or 
qualities, are brought before us ? We should see a 
person who, in the pursuit of knowledge, is self- 
moving, and, in the exercise of the influence which 
knowledge gives, is able to appreciate the qualities 
of others ; and who, moreover, possesses enough of 
inventive power to devise means by which he can 
lead pupils, students, or hearers, in the way they 
ought to go. We naturally look for such persons in 
the lecture-room, the school, and the pulpit. And 
we find them there ; but they are also to be found in 
other places. There are thousands of such men in 
America, engaged in the active pursuits of the day. 
They are farmers, mechanics, merchants, operatives. 
They do not often follow text-books, and therefor 
are none the worse, but much the better teachers. 
Insensibly they have taken on the spirit of the 
teacher and the school, and, apparently ignorant of 
the fact, are, in the quiet^ pursuits of daily life, 
leaders of classes following some great thought, or 
devoted to some practica.1 investigation. And in 
one respect these teachers are of a liigher order than 
some — not all, nor most — of our professional teach- 



Nature and Value of Learning. 15 



ers. They never cease to be students. When a 
man or woman puts on the garb of the teacher, and 
throws off the garb of the student, you will soon 
find that person so dwindled and dwarfed, that nei- 
ther will hang upon the shoulders. This happens 
sometimes in the school, but never in the world. 

The last twenty-five years have produced two new 
features in our civilization, that are at once a cause 
and a product of learning. I speak of the Press, 
and of Associations for mutual improvement. 

The newspaper press of America, having its cen- 
tre in the city of New York, is more influential than 
the press of any other country. It may not be con- 
ducted with greater ability ; though, if compared 
with the English press, the chief difference unfavor- 
able to America is found in the character of the lead- 
ing editorial articles. In enterprise, in telegraphic 
business, maritime, and political news and informa- 
tion, the press of the United States is not behind 
that of Great Britain. 

It must, however, be admitted that a given sub- 
ject is usually more thoroughly discussed in a single 
issue from the English press ; but it is by no means 
certain that public questions are, upon the whole, 
better canvassed in England than in America. In- 
deed, the opposite is probably true. Our press will 
follow a subject day after day, with the aid of new 



16 Nature and Value of Learning. 

thoughts and facts, until it is well understood by 
the reader. European ideas of journalism cannot be 
followed blindly by the press of America. The jour- 
nalist in Europe writes for a select few. His readers 
are usually persons of leisure, if they have not 
always culture and taste ; and the issue of the morn- 
ing paper is to them what the appearance of the 
quarterly, heavy or racy, is to the cultivated Amer- 
ican reader. 

But the American journalist, whatever his taste 
may be, cannot afford to address himself to so small 
an audience. He writes literally for the million ; for 
I take it to be no exaggeration to say that para- 
graphs and articles are often read by millions of 
people in America. This fact is an important one, 
as it furnishes a good test of the standard taste and 
learning of the people. Our press answers the de- 
mand which the people make upon it. The mass 
of newspaper readers are not, in a scholastic sense, 
well-educated persons. Newspaper writers do not, 
therefore, trouble themselves about the colleges with 
their professors, but they seek rather to gain the 
attention and secure the support of the great body 
of the people, who know nothing of colleges except 
through the newsi^apers. We have always been 
permitted to infer the intellectual and moral char- 
acter of the audiences of Demosthenes, from the ora- 



Nature and Value of Learning. 17 

tions of Demosthenes ; and may we not also infer 
the character of the American people, from the char- 
acter of the press that they support ? In a single 
issue may often be found an editorial article upon 
some question of present interest ; a sermon, address, 
or speech, from a leading mind of the country or the 
world ; letters from various quarters of the globe ; 
extracts from established literary and scientific jour- 
nals ; original essays upon political, literarj^, scien- 
tific, and religious subjects ; and items of local or 
general interest for all classes of readers. This prod- 
uct of the press, in quantity and quality, could not 
be distributed, week after week, and year after year, 
among an ignorant class of people. It could be 
accepted by intelligent, thinking, progressive minds 
only ; and, as a fact necessarily coexisting, we find 
the newspaper press equally essential to the best- 
educated persons among us. The newspaper press 
in America is a century and a half old ; but its 
power does not antedate this century, and its 
growth has been chiefly within the last twenty-five 
years. "What that growth has been may be easily 
seen by any one who will compare the daily sheet 
of the last generation with the daily sheet of this ; 
and the future of the American press may be easily 
predicted by those who consider the progressive 
2* 



18 Nature and Value of Learning. 

influences among us, of which the newspaper must 
always be the truest representative. 

Within the same brief period of time it has become 
the fixed custom of the people to associate together 
for educational objects. 

As a consequence, we have the lyceum for all, 
libraries for all, professional institutes and clubs for 
merchants, mechanics, and farmers, and, at last, free 
libraries and lectures for the operatives in the mills. 
Where these institutions can exist, there must be a 
high order of general learning ; and where these 
institutions do exist, and are sustained, the learning 
of the people, whether high or low at any given 
moment, must be rapidly improved. Yet some of 
these agencies — lectures and libraries, for example 
— are not free from serious faults. It may seem rash 
and indefensible to criticize lectures upon the plat- 
form of the lecturer ; but, as the audience can inflict 
whatever penalty they please upon the speaker, he 
will so far assume responsibility as to say that 
amusement is not the highest object of a single lec- 
ture, and when sought by managers as the desirable 
object of a whole course, the lecture-room becomes 
a theatre of dissipation ; surely not so bad as other 
forms of dissipation, but yet so distinctly marked, 
and so pernicious in its influence, as to be compara- 
tively unworthy of general support. Let it not, 



Nature and Value of Learning. 19 

however, be inferred that wit, humor, and drollery 
even, are to be excluded from the lecture-room ; but 
they should always be employed as means by which 
information is communicated. Between lecturers 
equal in other respects, one with the salt of humor, 
native to the soil, should be preferred ; but it is a 
sad reflection upon public taste, when a person 
whose entire intellectual capital is wit, humor, or 
buffoonery, is preferred to men of solid learning. 
But it is a worse view of human nature, when men 
of real merit and worth depreciate themselves and 
lower the public taste, by attempting to do what, at 
best, they can have but ill success in, and what they 
would despise themselves for, were they to succeed 
completely. Shakspeare says of a jester : 

" This fellow 's wise enough to play the fool ; 
And to do that well, craves a kind of wit : 
****** 

This is a practice 
As full of labor as a wise man's art : 
For folly, that he wisely shows, is fit ; 
But wise men, folly- fallen, quite taint their wit." 

A kindred mental dissipation follows in the steps 
of progress, and demands aliment from our public 
libraries. In the selection of books there is a wide 
range, from the trashy productions of the fifth- 



20 Nature and Value of Learning. 

rate novelist, to stately history and exact science. 
It is, however, to be assumed that libraries will not 
be established until they are wanted, and that the 
want will not be pressing until there is a taste for 
reading somewhat general. Where this taste exists, 
it is fair to assume that it is in some degree ele- 
vated. The direction, however, which the taste of 
any community is to take, after the establishment 
of a public library, depends, in a great degree, upon 
the selection of books for its shelves. Two dangers 
are to be avoided. The first, and greatest, is the 
selection of books calculated to degrade the morals 
or intellect of the reader. This danger is apparent, 
and to be shunned needs but to be seen. Books, of 
more or less intrinsic value, are so abundant and 
cheap, that common men must go out of their way 
to gather a large collection that shall not contain 
works of real merit. But the object should be to 
exclude all worthless and pernicious works, and 
meet and improve the public taste, by offering it 
mental food better than that to which it has been 
accustomed. The other danger is negative, rather 
than positive ; but, as books are comparatively 
worthless when they are not read, it becomes a 
matter of great moment to select such as will touch 
the public mind at a few points, at least. It is 
indeed possible, and, under the guidance of some 



Nature and Value of Learning. 21 

persons, it would be natural, to encumber the 
shelves of a library with good books that might 
ever remain so, saving only the contributions made 
to mould and mice. 

Now, if you will pardon a little more fault-finding, 
— which is, I confess, a quality without merit, or, 
as Byron has it, 

" A man must serve his time to every trade 
Save censure — critics all are ready made," — 

I will hazard the opinion that the practice of estab- 
lishing libraries in towns for the benefit of a portion 
of the inhabitants only is likely to prove pernicious 
in the end. To be sure, reading for some is better 
than reading for none ; but reading for all is better 
than either. In Massachusetts there is a general 
law that permits cities and towns to raise money for 
the support of libraries ; yet the legislature, in a 
few cases, has granted charters to library associa- 
tions. With due deference, it may very well be 
suggested, that, where a spirit exists which leads 
a few individuals to ask for a charter, it would be 
better to turn this spirit into a public channel, that 
all might enjoy its benefits. And it will happen, gen- 
erally, that the establishment of a public library will 
be less expensive to the friends of the movement, 
and the advantages will be greater ; while there will 



22 Nature and Value of Learning. 

be an additional satisfaction in the good conferred 
upon others. 

We shall act wisely if we apply to books a maxim 
of the Greeks : " All things in common amongst 
friends.'' Under this maxim Cicero has enumerated, 
as principles of humanity, not to deny one a little 
running water, or the lighting his fire by ours, if he 
has occasion ; to give the best counsel we are able 
to one who is in doubt or distress ; which, says he, 
*' are things that do good to the person that re- 
ceives them, and are no loss or trouble to him that 
confers them." And he quotes, with approbation, 
the words of Ennius : 

" He that directs the wandering traveller 
Doth, as it were, light another's torch by his own; 
Which gives him ne'er the less of light, for that 
It gave another." 

A good book is a guide to the reader, and a well- 
selected library will be a guide to many. And shall 
we give a little running water, and turn aside or 
choke up the streams of knowledge ?- light the even- 
ing torch, and leave the immortal mind unillumined ? 
give free counsel to the ignorant or distressed, 
when he might easily be qualified to act as his own 
counsellor ? In July 1856, Mr. Everett gave five 
hundred dollars toward a library for the High School 



Nature and Value of Learning. 23 



in his native town of Dorchester ; and in 1854 Mr. 
Abbott Lawrence gave an equal sum to his native 
town for the establishment of a public library. 
These are not large donations, if we consider only 
the amount of money given ; but it is difScult to 
suggest any other equal appropriation that would 
be as beneficial, in a public sense. These donations 
are noble, because conceived in a spirit of compre- 
hensive liberality. They are examples worthy of 
imitation ; and I venture to affirm, there is not one 
of our New England towns that has not given to 
the world a son able to make a similar contribution 
to the cause of general learning. Is it too much to 
believe that a public library in a town will double 
the number of persons having a taste for reading, 
and consequently double the number of well-edu- 
cated people ? For, though we are not educated by 
mere reading, it is yet likely to happen that one 
who has a taste for books will also acquire habits 
of observation, study, and reflection. 

Professional institutes and clubs also serve to 
increase the sum of general learning. They have 
thus far avoided the evil which has waited or fast- 
ened upon similar associations in Europe, — subser- 
viency to political designs. Every profession or 
interest of labor has peculiar ideas and special pur- 
poses. These ideas and purposes may be wisely 



24 Nature and Value of Learning. 

promoted by distinct organizations. Who can doubt 
the utility of associations of merchants, mechanics, 
and farmers ? They furnish opportunities for the 
exchange of opinions, the exhibition of products, the 
dissemination of ideas, and the knowledge of im- 
provements, that are thus wisely made the property 
of all. Knowledge begets knowledge. What is the 
distinguishing fact between a good school and a 
poor one ? Is it not, that in a good school the pre- 
vailing public sentiment is on the side of knowledge 
and its acquisition ? And does not the same fact 
distinguish a learned community from an ignorant 
community ? If, in a village or city of artisans, each 
one makes a small annual contribution to the gen- 
eral stock of knowledge, the aggregate progress will 
be appreciable, and, most likely, considerable. If, 
on the other hand, each one plods by himself, the 
sum of professional knowledge cannot be increased, 
and is likely to be diminished. 

The moral of the parable of the ten talents is em- 
inently true in matters of learning. " Unto every 
one that hath shall be given, and he shall have 
abundance : but from him that hath not shall be 
taken away even that which he hath.'^ We cannot 
conceive of a greater national calamity than an 
industrial population delving in mental sluggishness 
at unrelieved and unchanging tasks. The manufac- 



Nature and Value of Learning. 25 

ture of pins was commenced in England in 1583, 
and for two hundred and fifty years she had the ex- 
clusive control of the trade ; yet all that period 
passed away without improvement, or change in the 
process ; while in America the business was revolu- 
tionized, simplified, and economized one-half, in the 
period of five years. In 1840 the valuation of Mas- 
sachusetts was about three hundred millions of dol- 
lars ; but it is certain that a large portion of this 
sum should have been set off against the constant 
impoverishment of the land, commencing with the 
settlement of the state, — the natural and unavoida- 
ble result of an ignorant system of farm labor. The 
revival of education in America was soon followed 
by a marked improvement in the leading industries 
of the people, and especially in the department 
of agriculture. The principle of association has not 
yet been as beneficial to the farmers as to the me- 
chanics ; but the former are soon to be compensated 
for the delay. With the exception of the business 
of discovering small planets, which seem to have 
been created for the purpose of exciting rivalry 
among a number of enthusiastic, well-minded, but 
comparatively secluded gentlemen, agricultural learn- 
ing has made the most marked progress in the last 
ten years. But an agricultural population is profes- 
sionally an inert population ; and, therefore, as in 
3 



26 Nature and Value of Learning. 

the accumulation of John Jacob Astor's fortune, it 
was more difficult to take the first step than to 
make all the subsequent movements. Now, how- 
ever, the principle of association is giving direction 
and force to the labors of the farmer ; and it is easy 
for any person to draw to himself, in that pursuit, 
the results of the learning of the world. 

Libraries and lectures for the operatives in the 
manufactories constitute another agency in the 
cause of general learning. The city of Lawrence, 
under the lead of well-known public-spirited gentle- 
men there, has the honor of introducing the system 
in America. A movement, to which this is kindred, 
was previously made in England ; but that move- 
ment had for its object the education of the opera- 
tives in the simple elements of learning, and among 
the females in a knowledge of household duties. 
An English writer says : " Many employers have 
already established schools in connection with their 
manufactories. From many instances before us, we 
may take that of Mr. Morris, of Manchester, who 
has risen, himself, from the condition of a factory 
operative, and who has felt in his own person the 
disadvantages under which that class of workmen 
labor. He has introduced many judicious improve- 
ments. He has spent about one hundred and fifty 
pounds in ventilating his mills ; and has estab- 



Nature and Value of Learning. 27 

lished a library, coffee-room, class-room, weekly 
lectures, and a system of industrial training. The 
latter has been established for females, of whom he 
employs a great many. This class of girls gener- 
ally go to the mills without any knowledge of house- 
hold duties ; they are taught in the schools to sew, 
knit,'' etc. 

But, in the provision made at Lawrence for intel- 
lectual culture, it is assumed, very properly, that 
the operatives are familiar with the branches usually 
taught in the public schools. This could not be 
assumed of an English manufacturing population, 
nor, indeed, of any town population, considered as 
a whole. Herein America has an advantage over 
England. Our laborers occupy a higher standpoint 
intellectually, and in that proportion their labors 
are more effective and economical. The managers 
and proprietors at Lawrence were influenced by a 
desire to improve the condition of the laborers, and 
had no regard to any pecuniary return to them- 
selves, either immediate or remote. And it would 
be a sufficient satisfaction to witness the growth 
of knowledge and morality, thereby elevating 
society, and rendering its institutions more se- 
cure. 

These higher results will be accompanied, how- 
ever, by others of sufficient importance to be con- 



28 Nature and Value of Learning. 

sidered. When we Mre, or, what is, for this in- 
quiry, the same thing, buy that commodity called 
labor, what do we expect to get ? Is it merely the 
physical force, the animal life contained in a given 
quantity of muscle and bone ? In ordinary cases 
we expect these, but in all cases we expect some- 
thing more. We sometimes buy, and at a very high 
cost, too, what has, as a product, the least conceiv- 
able amount of manual labor in it, — a professional 
opinion, for example ; but we never buy physical 
strength merely, nor physical strength at all, unless 
it is directed by some intellectual force. The de- 
scending stream has power to drive machinery, and 
the arm of the idiot has force for some mechanical 
service, but they equally lack the directing mind. 
We are not so unwise as to purchase the power 
of the stream, or the force of the idiot's arm ; 
but we pay for its application in the thing pro- 
duced, and we often pay more for the skill that 
has directed the power than for the power itself. 
The river that now moves the machinery of a 
factory in which many scores of men and women 
find their daily labor, and earn their daily bread, 
was employed a hundred years ago in driving a 
single set of mill-stones ; and thus a man and boy 
were induced to divide their time lazily between the 
grist in the hopper and the fish under the dam. 



Nature and Value of Learning. 29 

The river's power has not changed ; but the invent- 
ive, creative genius of man has been applied to 
it, and new and astonishing results are produced. 
With man himself this change has been even great- 
er. In proportion to the population of the country, 
we are daily dispensing with manual labor, and yet 
we are daily increasing the national production. 
There is more mind directing the machinery pro- 
pelled by the forces of nature, and more mind direct- 
ing the machinery of the human body. The result 
is, that a given product is furnished by less outlay 
of physical force. Formerly, with the old spinning- 
wheel and hand-loom, we put a great deal of bone 
and muscle into a yard of cloth ; now we put in 
very little. We have substituted mind for physical 
force, and the question is, which is the more eco- 
nomical ? Or, in other words, is it of any conse- 
quence to the employer whether the laborer is 
ignorant or intelligent ? 

Before we discuss this point abstractly, let us 
notice the conduct of men. Is any one willing to 
give an ignorant farm laborer as much as he is 
ready to pay for the services of an intelligent man ? 
And if not, why the distinction ? And if an igno- 
rant man is not the best man upon a farm, is he 
likely to be so in a shop or mill ? And if not, we 
see how the proprietors of factories are interested 
3* 



30 Nature and Value of Learning. 

in elevating the standard of learning, in the mills 
and outside. But they are not singular in this. All 
classes of employers are equally concerned in the 
education of the laborer ; for learning not only makes 
his labor more valuable to himself, but the market 
price of the product is generally reduced, and the 
change affects favorably all interests of society. 
This benefit is one of the first in point of time, and 
the one, perhaps, most appreciable of all which 
learning has conferred upon the laborer. As each 
laborer, with the same expenditure of physical force, 
produces a greater result, of course the aggregate 
products of the world are vastly increased, although 
they represent only the same number of laborers 
that a less quantity would have represented under 
an ignorant system. 

The division of these products upon any principle 
conceivable leaves for the laborer a larger quantity 
than he could have before commanded ; for, although 
the share of the wealthy may be disproportionate, 
their ability to consume is limited ; and, as poverty 
is the absence or want of things necessary and con- 
venient for the purposes of life, according to the 
ideas at the time entertained, we see how a laboring 
population, necessarily poor while ignorance pre- 
vails, is elevated to a position of greater social and 
physical comfort, as mind takes the place of brute 



Nature and Value of Learning. 31 

force in the industries of the worhi. Learning, then, 
is not the result of social comfort, but social comfort 
is the product of intelligence, and increases or dimin- 
ishes as intelligence is general or limited. It is not, 
however, to be taken as granted that each laborer's 
position corresponds or answers to the sum of his 
own knowledge. It might happen that an ignorant 
laborer would enjoy the advantages of a general 
culture, to which he contributed little or nothing ; 
and it must of necessity also happen that an intelli- 
gent laborer, in the midst of an ignorant population, 
as in Ireland or India, for example, would be com- 
pelled to accept, in the main, the condition of those 
around him. But there is no evidence on the face 
of society now, or in its history, that an ignorant 
population, whether a laboring population or not, 
has ever escaped from a condition of poverty. And 
the converse of the proposition is undoubtedly true, 
that an intelligent laboring community will soon 
become a wealthy community. Learning is- sure to 
produce wealth ; wealth is likely to contribute to 
learning, but it does not necessarily produce it. 
Hence it follows that learning is the only means by 
which the poor can escape from their poverty. 

In this statement it is assumed that education 
does not promote vice ; and not only is this negative 
assumption true, but it is safe to assume, further, that 



32 Nature and Value of Learning. 

education favors virtue, and that any given popula- 
tion will be less vicious when educated than when 
ignorant. This, I cannot doubt, is a general truth, 
subject, of course, to some exceptions. 

The educational struggle in which the English 
people are now engaged has made distinct and 
tangible certain opinions and impressions that are 
latent in many minds. There has been an attempt 
to show that vice has increased in proportion to 
education. This attempt has failed, though there 
may be found, of course, in all countries, single facts, 
or classes of facts, that seem to sustain such an 
opinion. 

Now, suppose this case, — and neither this case 
nor any similar one has ever occurred in real life, — 
but suppose crime to increase as a people were edu- 
cated, though there should be no increase of popula- 
tion ; would this fact prove that learning made men 
worse ? By no means. Our answer is apparent on 
the face of the change itself. By education, the 
business and pecuniary relations and transactions 
of a people are almost indefinitely multiplied ; and 
temptations to crime, especially to crimes against 
property, are multiplied in an equal ratio. Would 
person or property be better respected in New York 
or Boston, if the most ignorant population of the 
world could be substituted for the present inhab- 



Nature and Value of Learning. 33 

itants of those cities 1 The business nerves of men 
are frequently shocked by some unexpected defalca- 
tion, and short-sighted moralists, who lack faith, 
exclaim, "All this is because men know so much ! '' 
Such certainly forget that for every defaulter in a 
city there are hundreds of honest men, who receive 
and render justly unto all, and hold without check 
the fortunes of others. So Mr. Drummond argued 
in the British House of Commons against a national 
system of education, because what he was pleased 
to call instruction had not saved William Palmer and 
John Sadlier. But the truth in this matter is not at 
the bottom of a well ; it is upon the surface. Where 
it is the habit of society generally to be ignorant, 
you will find it the necessity of that society to be 
poor ; and where ignorance and poverty both abound, 
the temptations to crime are unquestionably few, but 
the power to resist temptation is as unquestionably 
weak. The absence of crime is owing to the absence 
of temptation, rather than to the presence of virtue. 
Such a condition of society is as near to real virtue 
as the mental weakness of the idiot is to true happi- 
ness. 

Turning again to the discussion in the British Par- 
liament of April, 1856, we are compelled to believe 
that some English statesmen are, in principle and in 
their ideas of political economy, where a portion of 



34 Nature and Value of Learning. 

the English eotton-spinners were a hundred years 
ago. The cotton-spinners thought the invention of 
labor-saving machinery wo.uld deprive them of bread; 
and a Mr. Ball gravely argues that schools will so 
occupy the attention of children, that the farmers' 
crops will be neglected. I am inclined to give you 
his own words ; and I have no doubt you will be in 
a measure relieved of the dulness of this essay, when 
you listen to what was actually cheered in the Brit- 
ish Commons. Speaking of the resolutions in favor 
of a national system of instruction, Mr. Ball said : 
" It was important to consider what would be their 
bearing on the agricultural districts of the country. 
He had obtained a return from his own farm, and, 
supposing the principles advocated by the noble 
lord were adopted, the results would be perfectly 
fearful. The following was the return he had ob- 
tained from his agent : William Chapman, ten years 
a servant on his (Mr. Ball's) farm; his own wages 
thirteen shillings, besides a house ; he had seven 
children, who earned nine shillings a week ; making 
together twenty-two shillings a week. Robert Arbor, 
fifteen years on the farm ; wages thirteen shillings a 
week, and a house ; six children, who earned six 
shillings a week ; making together nineteen shil- 
lings. John Stevens, thirty-three years a servant 
on the farm ; his own wages fourteen shillings a 



Nature and Value of Learning. 35 

week ; he had brought up ten children, whose aver- 
age earnings had been twelve shilHngs weekly, mak- 
ing together twenty-six shillings a week. Robert 
Carbon, twenty-two years a servant on the farm ; 
wages thirteen shillings a week ; having ten chil- 
dren, who earned ten shillings a week ; making 
together twenty-three shillings a week. Thus it 
appeared that in these four families the fathers 
earned fifty-three shillings weekly, and the children 
thirty-seven shillings a week ; so that the children 
earned something more than two-thirds of the amount 
of the earnings of the fathers. He would ask the 
house, if the fathers were to be deprived of the earn- 
ings of the children, how could they provide bread 
for them ? It was perfectly impossible. They must 
either increase the parent's wages to the amount of 
the loss he thus sustained, or they must make it up 
to him from a rate. Then, again, those who were at 
all conversant with agriculture knew that if they 
deprived the farmer of the labor of children, agri- 
culture could not be carried on. There was no 
machinery by which they could get the weeds out 
of the land." — London Times. 

The light which this statement furnishes is not 
hid under a bushel. The argument deserves a more 
logical form, and I proceed gratuitously to give the 
author the benefit of a scientific arrangement. *' If 



36 Nature and Value of Learning. 

a national system of education is adopted, the chil- 
dren of my tenants will be sent to school ; if the 
children of my tenants are sent to school, my turnips 
will not be weeded ; if my turnips are not weeded, I 
shall eat fat mutton no more.'' 

After this from a statesman, we need not wonder 
that a correspondent of Lord John Russell writes, 
" That a farmer near him has been heard to say, he 
would not give anything to a day-school ; he finds 
that since Sunday-schools have been established the 
birds have increased and eat his corn, and because 
he cannot now procure the services of the boys, 
whom he used to employ the whole of Sunday, in 
protecting his fields," — London Times, April ISth, 
1856. 

Now, I do not go to England for the purpose of 
making an attack upon her opinions ; but, as kindred 
ideas prevail among us, though to a limited extent 
only, the folly of them may be seen in persons at a 
distance, when it would not be realized by ourselves. 
Moreover, the presentation of these somewhat ridic- 
ulous notions brings ridicule upon a whole class of 
errors ; and when errors are so ingrained that men 
cannot reason in regard to them, ridicule is often the 
only weapon of successful attack. And it is no 
compliment to an American audience for the speaker 
to say that their own minds already suggest the 



Nature and Value of Learning. 37 

refutation which .these errors demand. If the chief 
end of man, for which boyhood should be a prepara- 
tion, were to weed turnips or to frighten blackbirds 
from corn-fields, then surely the objection of Mr. 
Ball, and the complaint and spirit of resistance 
offered by Lord John Russell's farmer, would be 
eminently proper. But Lord John Russell did not 
himself assent to the view furnished by his corres- 
pondent. Mr, Ball's theory evidently is, " Take good 
care of the turnips, and leave the culture of the boys 
and girls to chance ; " and Lord John Russell's wise 
farmer unquestionably thinks that cereal peculations 
of blackbirds are more dangerous than the robberies 
committed by neglected children, grown to men. 

Mr. Clay, chaplain of Preston jail, says : " Thirty- 
six per cent, come into jail unable to say the Lord's 
Prayer ; and seventy-two per cent, come in such a 
state of moral debasement that it is in vain to give 
them instruction, or to teach them their duty, since 
they cannot understand the meaning of the words 
used to them." Here we have, as cause and effect, 
the philosophy of Mr. Ball, and the facts of Mr. 
Clay. And, further, this philosophy is as bad in 
principle, when tried by the rules of political econ- 
omy, as when subjected to moral and Christian tests. 

Mr. Ball says there is no machinery by which the 
farmers can get the weeds out of the land. This 
4 



38 Nature and Value of Learning. 

may be true ; and once there was no machinery by 
which they could get the seed into the land, or the 
crops from it. Once there was little or no inventive 
power among the mechanics, or scientific knowl- 
edge, or even spirit of inquiry, among the farmers. 
How have these changes been wrought ? By educa- 
tion, surely, and that moral and religious culture 
for which secular education is a fit preparation. 
The contributions of learning to labor, in a pecuniary 
aspect alone, have far exceeded the contributions of 
labor to learning. 

It is impossible to enumerate the evidences in 
support of this statement, but single facts will give 
us some conception of their aggregated value and 
force. 

It was stated by Mr. Flint, Secretary of the Mas- 
sachusetts Board of Agriculture, in his Annual Re- 
port for 1855, " That the saving to the country, 
from the improvements in ploughs alone, within the 
last twenty-five years, has been estimated at no less 
than ten millions of dollars a year in the work of 
teams, and one million in the price of ploughs, while 
the aggregate of the crops is supposed to have been 
increased by many millions of bushels. '^ From this 
fact, as the representative of a great class of facts, 
we may safely draw two conclusions. First, these 
improvements are the products of learning, the con- 



Nature and Value of Learning. 39 

tribution which learning makes to labor, far exceed- 
ing in amount any tax which the cause of learning, 
in schools or out, imposes upon labor. Secondly, 
we see that a given amount of adult labor upon a 
farm, with the help of the improved implements of 
industry, will accomplish more in 1856, than the 
same amount of adult labor, with its attendant 
juvenile force, could have accomplished in 1826. If 
we were fully to illustrate and sustain the latter infer- 
ence, we should be required to review the improve- 
ments made in other implements of farming, as well as 
in ploughs. Their positive pecuniary value, when con- 
sidered in the aggregate, is too vast for general belief; 
and in England alone it must exceed the anticipated 
cost of a system of public instruction, say six mil- 
lions of pounds, or thirty millions of dollars, per year. 
But learning, as we have defined it, has contributed 
less to farming than to other departments of labor. 

The very existence of manufactures presupposes 
the existence of learning. There is no branch of 
manufactures without its appropriate machine ; and 
every machine is the product of mind, enlarged and 
disciplined by some sort of culture. The steam 
engine, the spinning-jenny, the loom, the cotton-gin, 
are notable instances of the advantages derived by 
manufacturing industry from the prevalence of learn- 
ing. It was stated by Chief Justice Marshall, about 



40 Nature and Value of Learning. 

thirty years ago, that Whitney's cotton-gin had saved 
five hundred millions of dollars to the country ; and 
the saving, upon the same basis, cannot now be less 
than one thousand millions of dollars, — a sum 
too great for the human imagination to conceive. 
When we contemplate these achievements of mind, 
by which manual labor hi^ been diminished, and 
every physical force both magnified and economized, 
how unstatesmanlike is the view which regards a 
human being as a bundle of muscles and bones 
merely, with no destiny but ignorance, servitude, 
and poverty I 

Ancient commerce, if we omit to notice the con- 
jecture that the mariner's compass was in possession 
of the old Phoenician and Indian navigators, repro- 
duced, rather than invented, in modern times, did 
not rest upon any enlarged scientific knowledge ; 
but, in this era, many of the sciences contribute to 
the extension and prosperity of trade. After what 
has been accomplished by science, and especially 
by physical geography, for commerce and naviga- 
tion, we have reason to expect a system, based upon 
scientific knowledge and principles, which shall 
render the highway of nations secure against the 
disasters that have often befallen those who go 
down to the sea in ships. Science gave to the 
world the steamship, which promised for a time to 



Nature and Value of Learning. 41 

engross the entire trade upon the ocean ; but science 
again appears, constructs vessels upon better scien- 
tific principles, traces out the path of currents in 
the water and the air, and thus restores the rival 
powers of wind and steam to an equality of position 
in the eye of the merchant. Will any one say that 
all this inures to capital, and leaves the laborer com- 
paratively unrewarded ? We are accustomed to use 
the word prosperity as synonymous with accumula- 
tion ; and yet, in a true view, a man may be pros- 
perous and accumulate nothing. Suppose we con- 
trast two periods in the life of a nation with each 
other. Since the commencement of this century, 
the wages of a common farm laborer in America have 
increased seventy-five or one hundred per cent., 
while the articles necessary and convenient for his 
use have, upon the whole, diminished in price. 
Admit that there was nothing for accumulation in 
the first period, and that there is nothing for accumu- 
lation now, — is not his condition nevertheless im- 
proved ? And, if so, has he not participated in the 
general prosperity ? 

Indeed, we may all accept the truth, that there is 
no exclusiveness in the benefits which learning con- 
fers ; and this leads me to say, next, that there ought 
to be no exclusiveness in the enjoyment of educa- 
tional privileges. 
4* 



42 Nature and Value of Learning. 

In America we agree to this ; and yet, confessedly, 
as a practical result we have not generally attained 
the end proposed. There are two practical difficul- 
ties in the way. First, our aim in a system of pub- 
lic instruction is not high enough ; and, secondly, 
we do not sufficiently realize the importance of edu- 
cating each individual. Our aim is not high enough ; 
and the result, like every other result, is measured 
and limited by the purpose we have in view. Our 
public schools ought to be so good that private 
schools for instruction in the ordinary branches 
would disappear. Mr. Everett said, in reply to in- 
quiries made by Mr. Twistleton, " I send my boy to 
the public school, because I know of none better." 
It should be the aim of the public to make their 
schools so good that no citizen, in the education of 
his children, will pass them by. 

It is as great a privilege for the wealthy as for 
the poor to have an opportunity to send their chil- 
dren to good public schools. It is a maxim in educa- 
tion that the teacher must first comprehend the pupil 
mentally and morally ; and might not many of the 
errors of individual and public life be avoided, if the 
citizen, from the first, were to have an accurate idea 
of the world in which he is to live ? The demand 
of labor upon education, as they are connected with 
every material interest of society, is, that no one 



Nature and Value of Learning. 43 

shall be neglected. The mind of a nation is its cap- 
ital. We are accustomed to speak of money as 
capital ; and sometimes we enlarge the definition, 
and include machinery, tools, flocks, herds, and lands. 
But for this moment let us do what we have a right 
to do, — go behind the definitions of lexicographers 
and political economists, and say, " capital is the 
producing force of society, and that force is mind.'^ 
Without this force, money is nothing ; machinery is 
nothing ; flocks, herds, lands, are nothing. But all 
these are made valuable and efficient by the power 
of mind. What we call civilization, — passing from 
an inferior to a superior condition of existence, — 
is a mental and moral process. If mind is the cap- 
ital, — the producing force of society, — what shall 
we say of the person or community that neglects its 
improvement ? Certainly, all that we should say of 
the miser, and all that was said of the timid servant 
who buried his talent in the earth. If one mind is 
neglected, then we fail as a generation, a state, a 
nation, as members of the human family, to answer 
the highest purposes of existence. Some possible 
good is unaccomplished, some desirable labor is un- 
performed, some means of progress is neglected, 
some evil seed, it may be, is sown, for which this 
generation must answer to all the successions of 
men. But let us not yield to the prejudice, though 



44 Nature and Value of Learning. 

sanctioned by custom, that learning unfits men for 
the labors of life. The schools may sometimes 
do this, but learning never. We cannot, however, 
conceal from our view the fact that this prejudice is 
a great obstacle to progress, even in New England ; 
an obstacle which may not be overcome without 
delay and conflict, in many states of this Union ; 
and especially in Great Britain is it an obstacle in 
the way of those who demand a system of universal 
education. 

In the House of Commons, Mr. Drummond op- 
poses a national system of education in this wise : 
"And, pray, what do you propose to rear your 
youth for ? Are you going to train them for states- 
men ? No. (A laugh.) The honorable gentleman 
laughs at the notion, and so would I. But you are 
going to fit them to be — what ? Why, cotton- 
spinners and pin-makers, or, if you like, blacksmiths, 
mere day laborers. These are the men whom you 
are to teach foreign languages, mathematics, and 
the notation of music. (Hear, hear.) Was there 
ever anything more absurd ? It really seems as if 
God had withdrawn common sense from this house.'' 
Now, what does this language of Mr. Drummond 
mean ? Does he not intend to say that it is unwise 
to educate that class of society from which cotton- 
spinners, pin-makers, blacksmiths, mere day labor- 



Nature and Value of Learning. 45 

ers, are taken ? Is it not his opinion that the busi- 
ness of pin-making is to be perpetuated in some fam- 
ilies and classes, and the business of statesmanship 
is to be perpetuated in others ? And, if so, does he 
not believe that the best condition of society is that 
which presents divisions based upon the factitious 
distinctions of birth and fortune ? Most certainly 
these questions indicate his opinions, as they indi- 
cate the opinions of those who cheered him, and as 
they also indicate the opinions of a few in this coun- 
try, who, through ignorance, false education, preju- 
dice, or sympathy with castes and races, fear to 
educate the laborer, lest he may forsake his calling. 
With us these fears are infrequent, but they ought 
not to exist at all. The question in a public sense is 
not, "From what family or class shall the pin-maker 
or the statesman be taken ? '^ There is no ques- 
tion at all to be answered. Educate the whole peo- 
ple. Education will develop every variety of talent, 
taste, and power. These qualities, under the guid- 
ance of the necessities of life and the public judg- 
ment, will direct each man to his proper place. If 
the son of a cotton-spinner become a statesman, it is 
because statesmanship needs him, and he has some 
power answering to its wants. And if Mr. Drum- 
mond's son become a cotton-spinner, it is because 
that is his right place, and the world will be the 



46 Nature and Value of Learning. 

better and the richer that Mr. Drummond's son is a 
cotton-spinner, and that he is a learned man too ; 
but, if Mr. Drummond's son occupy the place of a 
statesman because he is Mr. Drummond's son, 
though he be no statesman at all himself, then the 
world is all the worse for the mistake, and poor 
compensation is it that Mr. Drummond's son is a 
learned man in something that he is never called to 
put in practice. 

When it is said that the statesmen, or those en- 
gaged in the business of government, shall come 
from one-tenth of the population, is not the state, 
according to the doctrine of chances, deprived of 
nine-tenths of its governing force ? And may not 
the same suggestion be made of every other branch 
of business ? 

But I pass now to the last leading thought, and 
soon to the conclusion of my address. The great 
contribution of learning to the laborer is its power, 
under the lead of Christianity, to break down the 
unnatural distinctions of society, and to render labor 
of every sort, among all classes, acceptable and hon- 
orable. Ignorance is the degradation of labor, and 
when laborers, as a class, are ignorant, their voca- 
tion is necessarily shunned by some ; and, being 
shunned by some, it is likely to be despised by oth- 
ers. Wherever the laboring population is in a con- 



Nature and Value of Learning. 47 

dition of positive, or, by a broad distinction, of com- 
parative ignorance, society will always divide itself 
into two, and oftentimes into three classes. We 
shall find the dominant class, the servient class, and 
then, generally, the despised class ; the dominant 
class, comparatively intelligent, possessing the prop- 
erty, administering the government, giving to social 
life its laws, and enjoying the fruits of labor which 
they do not perform ; the servient class, unwittingly 
in a state of slavery, whether nominally bond or free, 
having little besides physical force to promote their 
own comfort or to contribute to the general prosper- 
ity, and furnishing security in- their degradation for 
a final submission to whatever may be required of 
them.; and last, a despised class, too poor to live 
without labor, and too proud to live by labor, assum- 
ing a position not accorded to them, and finally 
yielding to a social and political ostracism even 
more degrading, to a sensitive mind, than the ser- 
vient condition they with so much effort seek to 
shun. 

All this is the fruit of ignorance ; all this may be 
removed by general learning-. If all men are learned, 
the work of the world will be performed by learned 
men ; and why, under such circumstances, should 
not every vocation that is honest be equally honora- 
ble ? But if this, in a broad view, seem Utopian, 



48 Nature and Value of Learning. 

can we not agree that learning is the only means by 
which a poor man can escape from his poverty ? 
And, if it furnish certain means of escape for one 
man, will it not furnish equally certain means of 
escape for many ? And if so, is not learning a 
general remedy for the inequalities among men ? 



EDUCATION AND CRIME. 

[Extract from the Twenty-First Annual Report of the Secretary of the Massa- 
chusetts Board of Education.] 

The public schools, in their relations to the morals 
of the pupils and to the morality of the community, 
are attracting a large share of attention. In some 
sections of the country the system is boldly de- 
nounced on account of its immoral tendencies. In 
states where free schools exist there are persons 
who doubt their utility ; and occasionally partisan 
or religious leaders appear who deny the existence 
of any public duty in regard to education, or who 
assert and maintain the doctrine that free schools 
are a common danger. As the people of this com- 
monwealth are not followers of these prophets of 
evil, nor believers in their predictions, there is but 
slight reason for discussion among us. It is not 
probable that a large number of the citizens of 
Massachusetts entertain doubts of the power and 
value of our institutions of learning, of every grade, 
to resist evil and promote virtue, through the influ- 
ence they exert. But, as there is nothing in our 
free-school system that shrinks from light, or inves- 
5. (49) 



50 Education and Crime. 

tigation even, I have selected from the annual 
reports everything which they contain touching the 
morality of the institution. In so doing, I have had 
two objects in view. First, to direct attention to 
the errors and wrongs that exist ; and, secondly, to 
state the opinion, and enforce it as I may be able, 
that the admitted evils found in the schools are the 
evils of domestic, social, municipal, and general 
life, which are sometimes chastened, mitigated, or 
removed, but never produced, nor even cherished, by 
our system of public instruction. In the extracts 
from the school committees' reports there are pas- 
sages which imply some doubt of the moral value of 
the system ; but it is our duty to bear in mind that 
these reports were prepared and presented for the 
praiseworthy purpose of arousing an interest in the 
removal of the evils that are pointed out. The 
writers are contemplating the importance of making 
the schools a better means of moral and intellectual 
culture ; but there is no reason to suppose that in 
any case a comparison is instituted, even mentally, 
between the state of society as it appears at present 
and the condition that would follow the abandon- 
ment of our system of public instruction. There are 
general complaints that the manners of children and 
youth have changed within thirty or fifty years ; 
that age and station do not command the respect 



Education and Crime. 51 

which was formerly manifested, and that some 
license in morals has followed this license in man- 
ners. 

The change in manners cannot be denied ; but the 
alleged change in morals is not sustained by a great 
amount of positive evidence. The customs of 
former generations were such that children often 
manifested in their exterior deportment a deference 
which they did not feel, while at present there may 
be more real respect for station, and deference for 
age and virtue, than are exhibited in juvenile life. In 
this explanation, if it be true, there is matter for 
serious thought ; but I should not deem it wise to 
encourage a mere outward show of the social virtues, 
which have no springs of life in the affections. 

And, notwithstanding the tone of the reports to 
which I have called attention, and notwithstanding 
my firm conviction that many moral defects are 
found in the schools, I am yet confident that their 
moral progress is appreciable and considerable. 

In the first place, teachers, as a class, have a 
higher idea of their professional duties, in respect to 
moral and intellectual culture. Many of them are 
permanently established in their schools. They are 
persons of character in society, with positions to 
maintain, and they are controlled by a strong sense 
of professional responsibility to parents and to the 



52 Education and Crime. 

public. It has been, to some extent, the purpose and 
result of Teachers' Associations, Teachers' Institutes, 
and Normal Schools, to create in the body of teach- 
ers a better opinion concerning their moral obliga- 
tions in the work of education. It must also be 'ad- 
mitted that the changes in school government have 
been favorable to learning and virtue. For, while it 
is not assumed that all schools are, or can be, con- 
trolled by moral means only, it is incontrovertible 
that a government of mild measures is superior 
to one of force. This superiority is as apparent 
in morals as in scholarly acquisitions. It is rare 
that a teacher now boasts of his success over his 
pupils in physical contests ; but such claims were 
common a quarter of a century ago. The change 
that has been wrought is chiefly moral, and in its 
influence we find demonstrative evidence of the 
moral superiority of the schools of the present over 
those of any previous period of this century. Before 
we can comprehend the moral work which the 
schools have done and are doing, we must perceive 
and appreciate with some degree of truthfulness the 
changes that have occurred in general life within a 
brief period of time. The activity of business, by 
which fathers have been diverted from the custody 
and training of their children ; the claims of fashion 
and society, which have led to some neglect of family 



Education and Crime. 53 

government on the part of mothers ; the aggrega- 
tion of large populations in cities and towns, always 
unfavorable to the physical and moral welfare of 
children ; the comparative neglect of agriculture, 
and the consequent loss of moral strength in the 
people, are all facts to be considered when we esti- 
mate the power of the public school to resist evil 
and to promote good. If, in addition to these un- 
favorable facts and tendencies, our educational 
system is prejudicial to good morals, we may well 
inquire for the human agency powerful enough ^to 
resist the downward course of New England and 
American civilization. To be sure, Christianity 
remains ; but it must, to some extent, use human 
institutions as means of good ; and the assertion 
that the schools are immoral is equivalent to a 
declaration that our divine religion is practically ex- 
cluded from them. This declaration is not in any 
just sense true. The du4y of daily devotional exer- 
cises is alwaj^s inculcated upon teachers, and the 
leading truths and virtues of Christianity are made, 
as far as possible, the daily guides of teachers and 
pupils. The tenets of particular sects are not taught ; 
but the great truths of Christianity, which are 
received by Christians generally, are accepted and 
taught by a large majority of committees and teach- 
ers. It is not claimed that the public schools are 
6* 



54 Education and Crime. 

religious institutions ; but they recognize and incul- 
cate those fundamental truths which are the basis 
of individual character, and the best support of 
social, religious, and political life. The statement 
that the public schools are demoralizing must be 
true, if true at all, for one of three reasons. Either 
because all education is demoralizing ; or, secondly, 
because the particular education given in the public 
schools is so ; or, thirdly, because the public-school 
system is corrupting, and consequently taints all the 
streams of knowledge that flow through or emanate 
from it. For, if the public system is unobjectionable 
as a system, and education is not in itself demoral- 
izing, then, of course, no ground remains for the 
charge that I am now considering. 

I. Is all education demoralizing? An affirmative 
answer to this question implies so much that no 
rational man can accept it. It is equivalent to the 
assertion that barbarism is a better condition than 
civilization, and that the progress of modern times 
has proceeded upon a misconception of the true ideal 
perfection of the human race. As no one can be 
found who will admit that his happiness has been 
marred, his powers limited, or his life degraded, by 
education, so there is no process of logic that can 
commend to the human understanding the doctrine 



Education and Crime. . 55 

that bodies of men are either less happy or virtuous 
for the culture of the intellect. I am not aware of 
any human experience that conflicts with this view ; 
for individual cases of criminals who have been well 
educated prove nothing in themselves, but are to be 
considered as facts in great classes of facts which 
indicate the principles and conduct of bodies of men 
who are subject to similar influences. In fact, the 
statistics to which I have had access tend to show 
that crime diminishes as intelligence increases. On 
this point the experience of Great Britain is probably 
more definite, and, of course, more valuable, than 
our own. The Aberdeen Feeding Schools were 
established in 1841, and during the ten years suc- 
ceeding the commitments to the jails of children 
under twelve years of age were as follows : * 

In 1812, 30 In 1817, 27 

1813, 63 1818, 19 

1844, 41 1819, 16 

1845, ...... 49 1850, 22 

1846 28 1851, 8 

211 92 

In the work of Mr. Hill it is also stated that '' the 
number of children under twelve committed for 

* The Repression of Crime. By M. D. Hill. 



56 Education and Crime, 

crime to the Aberdeen prisons, during the last six 
years, was as follows : 

Males. Females. Total. 

1849-50, 11 5 16 

1850-51, 14 8 22 

1851-52, 6 2 8 

1852-53, 23 1 2d 

1853-54, 24 1 25 

1854-55, 47 2 49 

" It will be observed that in the last three years 
there has been a great increase of boy crime, con- 
temporaneously with an almost total absence of girl 
crime, though formerly the amount of the latter was 
considerable. Now, since this extraordinary differ- 
ence coincides in point of time with the fact of full 
girls' schools and half empty boys' schools, the infer- 
ence can hardly be avoided that the two facts bear 
the relation of cause and effect, and that, so far from 
the late increase of youthful crime in Aberdeen any- 
wise impairing the soundness of the principle on 
which the schools are based, it is its strongest con- 
firmation. In moral as in physical science, when the 
objections to a theory are, upon further investigation, 
explained by the theory itself, they become the best 
evidence of its truth. Indeed, it is proved, by the 
experience, not only of Aberdeen, but, as far as I 
have been able to ascertain, of every town in Scot- 



Education and Crime. 57 

land in which industrial schools have been estab- 
lished, that the number of children in the schools 
and the number in the jail are like the two ends of a 
scale-beam : as the one rises the other falls, and 
vice versa. 

" The following list of imprisonments of children 
attending the schools of the Bristol Ragged School 
Union shows considerable progress in the right 
direction : 



' 1-47. l^if. ISiJ. ISoO. 


1S51. 

1 


lSo2. 

1 


1S63. 1S.;4. 1555. 


Imprisone-i, 12 19 j 26 j 9 


- ' - 



1 66, averaeiiiR 16.5 per year on number of -tlT children. 
the first four years, 5 

In aobeeqnent five 

years. 



S 3, averaging 0.6 per year on nomber of TiS children- 



Diference, 15.9 

16.5 : 15.9 : : 100 : 96.36. 

*' Thus," says Mr. Thornton, " it appears that the 
diminution of the average annual number of children 
attending our schools imprisoned in the latter period 
of five years, as compared with the annual average of 
the previous four years, is ninety-six per cent. — a 
striking fact, which is, I think, a manifest proof of the 
benefit conferred on them by the religious and sec- 
ular instruction they receive in our schools, or, at 



58 Education and Crime. 

the very least, of the advantages of rescuing them 
from the temptations of idleness, and from evil com- 
panionship and example.'' 

I also copy, from the work already referred to, an 
extract from a paper on the Reformatory Institutions 
in and near Bristol, by Mary Carpenter: "In num- 
berless instances children may be seen growing up 
decently, who owe their only training and instruc- 
tion to the school. Young persons are noticed in 
regular work, who, before they attended the Ragged 
Schools, were vagrants, or even thieves. Not un- 
frequently a visit is paid at the school by a respect- 
able young man, who proves to have been a wild 
and troublesome scholar of former times." 

Mr. Hill, Recorder of Birmingham, in a charge to 
the grand jury, made in 1839, speaking of the means 
of repressing crime, says : " It is to education, in 
the large and true meaning of the word, that we 
must all look as the means of striking at the root of 
the evil. Indeed, of the close connection between 
ignorance and crime the calendar which I hold in 
my hand furnishes a striking example. Each pris- 
oner has been examined as to the state of his educa- 
tion, and the result is set down opposite his name. 
It appears, then, that of forty-three prisoners only 
one can read and write well. The majority can 
neither read nor write at all ; and the remainder, with 



Education and Crime. 59 

the solitary exception which I have noted down, are 
said to read and write imperfectly ; which necessa- 
rily implies that they have not the power of using 
those great elem-ents of knowledge for any practical 
object. Of forty-three prisoners, forty-two, then, are 
destitute of instruction." 

These authorities are not cited because they refer 
to schools that answer in character to the public 
schools of Massachusetts, for the latter are far supe- 
rior in the quality of their pupils, and in the oppor- 
tunities given for intellectual and moral education ; 
but these cases and opinions are presented for the 
purpose of showing what has been done for the im- 
provement of children and the repression of crime 
under the most unfavorable circumstances that exist 
in a civilized community. If such benign results 
have followed the establishment of schools of an 
inferior character, is it unreasonable to claim that 
education and the processes of education, however 
imperfect they may be, are calculated to increase the 
sum of human progress, virtue, and happiness ? 

II. Is the particular education given in the puhlic 
schools unfavorable to the morals of the pupils, and, 
consequently, to the morality of the community? I 
have .already presented a view of the moral and 
religious education given in the schools, and it only 



60 Education and Crime. 

remains to consider the culture that is in its leading 
features intellectual. It may be said, speaking gen- 
erally, that education is a training and development 
of the faculties, so as to make them harmonize in 
power, and in their relations to each other. Among 
other things, the ability to read is acquired in the 
public schools. In the individual, this is a power 
for good. It opens to the mind and heart the teach- 
ings of the sacred Scriptures ; it secures the compan- 
ionship of the great, the wise, and the good, of every 
age ; and it is a possession that, in all cases, must 
be the foundation of those scientific acquisitions, 
intellectual, moral, and natural, which show the 
beneficence and power of the Creator, and indicate 
the fact and the law of human responsibility. The 
natural and general effect of the sciences taught in 
the schools is an illustration of the last statement. 
Moreover, the mere presence of a child, though he 
took no part in the studies of the school, is to him a 
moral lesson. He feels the force of government, he 
acquires the habit of obedience, and, in time, he 
comprehends the reason of the rules that are estab- 
lished. This discipline is essentially moral, and fur- 
nishes some basis, though partial and unsatisfactory, 
for the proper discharge of the duties of life. But 
it is to be remembered that the power of the school 
is but in its beginning when the presence of a pupil 



Education and Crime. 61 

is recognized. The constancy and punctuality of 
attendance required by all judicious parents and 
faithful teachers are important moral lessons, whose 
influence can never be destroyed. The fixedness of 
purpose that is required, and is essential in school, 
remains as though it were a part of the nature of 
the child and the man. School-life strengthens 
habits of industry when they exist, and creates them 
when they do not. It is, indeed, the only means, 
of universal application, that is competent to train 
children in habits of industry. Private schools can 
never furnish this training ; for large numbers of 
children, by the force of circumstances, are deprived 
of the tuition of such schools. Business life cannot 
furnish this training ; for the habits of the child are 
usually moulded, if not hardened, before he arrives at 
an age when he can be constantly employed in any 
industrial vocation. The public school is no doubt 
justly chargeable with neglects and omissions ; but 
its power for good, measured by the character of 
the education now furnished, is certainly very great. 
It inculcates habits of regularity, punctuality, con- 
stancy, and industry, in the pursuits of business ; 
through literature and the sciences in their elements, 
and, under some circumstances, by an advanced 
course of study, it leads the pupil towards the 
fountain of life and wisdom ; and, by the moral and 
6 



62 Education and Crime. 

religious instruction daily given, some preparation 
is made for the duties of life and the temptations of 
the world. 

III. Is the public-school system, as a system, in 
itself necessarily corrupting ? As preliminary to the 
answer to be given to this question, it is well to 
consider what the public-school system is. 

1. Every inhabitant is required to contribute to its 
support. 

2. It contemplates the education of every child, 
regardless of any distinction of society or nature. 

3. The system is subject in many respects to the 
popular will ; and ultimately its existence and char- 
acter are dependent upon the public judgment. 

4. In the Massachusetts schools, the daily reading 
of the Scriptures is required. 

The consideration of these topics, will conclude 
my remarks upon the general subject of the moral 
influence of the American system of public instruc- 
tion. In New England it is very unusual to hear 
the right of the state to provide for the support of 
schools by general taxation called in question ; but 
I am satisfied, from private conversations, and from 
occasional public statements, that there are leading 
minds in some sections of the country that are yet 
unconvinced of the moral soundness of the basis 



Education and Crime. 63 

on which a system of public instruction necessarily 
rests. Taxation is simply an exercise of the right 
of the whole to take the property of an individual ; 
and this right can be exercised justly in those cases 
only where the application of the property so taken 
is, morally speaking, to a public use. The judgment 
of the public determines the legality of the proceed- 
ing ; but it is possible that in some cases a public 
judgment might be secured which could not be sup- 
ported by a process of moral reasoning. On what 
moral grounds, then, does the right of taxation for 
educational objects rest ? I answer, first, education 
diminishes crime. The evidence in support of this 
statement has already been presented. It is a mani- 
fest individual duty to make sacrifices for this object ; 
and, as every crime is an injury, not only to him who 
is the subject of it, but to every member of society, 
the prevention of crime becomes a public as well as 
an individual duty. 

The conviction of a criminal is a public duty ; and, 
under all governments of law, it is undertaken at the 
public charge. Ofiences are not individual merely ; 
they are against society also, inasmuch as it is the 
right of society that all its members shall behave 
themselves well. And, if "it is the right of society 
that its members shall behave themselves well,Js it 
not the duty of society to so provide for their educa- 



64 Education and Crime. 

tion that each individual part may meet the demand 
which the whole body asserts ? And, further, as a 
majority of persons cannot individually provide for 
their own protection, it is the duty of society, or 
the state, or the government, to furnish the needed 
protection in the most economical and effective man- 
ner possible. The state has no moral right to jeop- 
ard property, life, and reputation, when, by a differ- 
ent policy, all these might be secure ; nor has the 
state a moral right to make the security furnished, 
whether perfect or not, unnecessarily expensive. It 
is the dictate of reason and the experience of gov- 
ernments that the most effectual method of repress- 
ing crime is to diminish the number of criminals ; 
and, though punitive measures may accomplish some- 
thing, our chief reliance must be upon the education 
and training of children and youth. The facts drawn 
from the experience of England and Scotland, which 
have been quoted, lead to the conclusion that schools 
diminish the number of criminals, and consequently 
lessen the amount of crime ; but I think it proper 
to add some extracts from a communication made, 
in August, 1856, by Mr. Dunne, chief constable of 
Newcastle-upon-Tyne, to the Secretary of the Na- 
tional Keformatory Union.* 

"I know, from my own personal knowledge and 

* The Repression of Crime, pp. 358, 359. 



Education and Crime. 65 

observation, that, since parental responsibility has 
been enforced in the district, under the direction of 
the Secretary of State, the number of juvenile crim- 
inals in the custody of the police has decreased one- 
half. I know that many of the parents, who were in 
the habit of sending their children into the streets 
for the purposes of stealing, begging, and plunder, 
have quite discontinued that practice, and several of 
the children so used, and brought up as thieves and 
mendicants, are now at some of the free schools of 
the town ; others are at work, and thereby obtain 
an honest livelihood ; and, so far as I can ascertain, 
they seem to be thoroughly altered, and appear 
likely to become good and honest members of 
society. I have, for my own information, conversed 
with some of the boys so altered, and, during the 
conversation I had with them, they declared that 
they derived the greatest happiness and satisfaction 
from their change in life. I don't at all doubt the 
truth of these statements, for their evident improve- 
ment and individual circumstances fully bear them 
out ; and I believe them to be really serious in all 
they say, and truly anxious to become honest and 
respectable. I attribute, in a great measure, this 
salutary change to the effects arising in many 
respects from the establishment of reformatory 
schools ; but I have more particularly found that 
6* 



66 Education and Crime. 

greater advantages have emanated from those insti- 
tutions since the parents of the children confined in 
them have been made to pay contributions to their 
maintenance ; for it appears beyond doubt that the 
effect of the latter has been to induce the parents of 
other young criminals to withdraw them from the 
streets, and, instead of using them for the purposes 
of crime, they seem to take an interest in their wel- 
fare. And I know that many of them are now really 
anxious to get such employment for their children as 
will enable them to obtain a livelihood ; and it is my 
opinion that the example thus set to older and more 
desperate criminals, belonging in many instances to 
the same family as the juvenile thief, has had the 
effect of reforming them also ; for many of them 
have left off their course of crime, and are now liv- 
ing by honest labor. The result is that serious crime 
has considerably decreased in this district, so much 
so that there were only six cases for trial at the 
assizes, whereas, at the previous assizes, the aver- 
age number of cases was from twenty-five to thirty, 
which fact was made the subject of much comment 
and congratulation by Mr. Justice Willes, the pre- 
siding judge." 

These remarks relate chiefly to the reformatory 
schools, but we know that the prevention of crime 
by education is much easier than its reformation by 



Education and Crime. 67 

the same means. Indeed, it is the result of the 
experience of Massachusetts that the necessity for 
reform schools has in a large degree arisen from 
neglect of the public schools. It is stated in the 
Tenth Annual Report of the Chaplain of the State 
Reform School that of nineteen hundred and nine 
boys admitted since the establishment of the institu- 
tion, thirteen hundred and thirty-four are known to 
have been truants. It is also quite probable that 
the number reported as truants is really less than 
the facts warrant. It may not be out of place to 
suggest, in this connection, that when a boy sen- 
tenced to the Reform School is known to have been 
guilty of truancy, if the parents were subjected to 
some additional burdens on that account, the cause 
of education would be promoted, and the number of 
criminals in the community would be diminished. 
From the views and facts presented, as well as from 
the daily observation and experience of men, I 
assume that ignorance is the ally of crime, and that 
education is favorable to virtue. It is also the result 
of experience and the dictate of reason that general 
taxation is the only means by which universal edu- 
cation can be secured. All other plans and theories 
will prove partial in their application. If, then, it is 
the duty of the state to protect itself against crime, 
and of course to diminish the number of criminals ; 



68 Education and Crime. 

if education is the most efficient means for securing 
these results ; if this education must be universal in 
order to be thoroughly effective ; if the state is the 
only agent or instrumentality of sufficient power to 
establish schools and furnish education for all ; and 
if general taxation is the only means which the state 
itself can command, is not every inhabitant justly 
required and morallj^ bound to contribute to the sup- 
port of a system of public instruction ? 

It will not necessarily happen that public schools 
will furnish to every child and youth the desired 
amount of education. Professional schools, classical 
schools, and academies of various grades, will be 
continued ; but there is an amount of intellectual and 
moral training needed by every child which can be 
best given in the public school. This training in 
the public schools ought to be carried much further 
than it usually is. In the city of Newburyport, as I 
have been informed, there are no exceptions to the 
custom of educating all the children of the town in 
the public schools up to the moment when young 
men enter college. In large towns and cities there 
is no excuse for the existence of private schools to 
do the work now done in such schools as those of 
Newburyport and other places where equal educa- 
tional privileges exist. 

The chief objection brought against the public 



Education and Crime. 69 

school, toucliing its morality, is derived from the 
fact that children who are subject to proper moral 
influences at home are brouglit in contact with oth- 
ers who are already practised in juvenile vices, if 
they have not been guilty of petty crimes. I am 
happy to believe that this statement is not true of 
many New England communities. The objection 
was considered in the last Annual Report, — it has 
been often considered elsewhere ; and I do not pro- 
pose to repeat at length the views which are enter- 
tained by the friends of public education. 

I have, however, to suggest that while this objec- 
tion applies with some force to the public school, it 
applies also to every other school, and that the evil 
is the least dangerous when the pupil is intrusted to 
the care of a qualified teacher, who is personally re- 
sponsible to the public for his conduct, and when the 
child is also subject to the restraints, and influenced 
by the daily example and teachings, of the parents. 

Moreover, it is to be remembered that the great 
value of education, in a moral aspect, is the develop- 
ment of the power to resist temptation. This power 
is not the growth of seclusion ; and while neither the 
teacher nor the parent ought wantonly to expose the 
child to vicious influences, the school may be even a 
better preparation for the world from the fact that 
temptation has there been met, resisted, and over- 



70 Education and Crime. 

come. It is also to be remembered that the judg- 
Dient of parents in a matter so difficult and delicate 
as a comparison between their own children and 
other children would not alvv^ays prove trustworthy 
nor just ; and that a judgment of parties not inter- 
ested would prove eminently fruitful of dissatisfac- 
tion and bitterness. 

If all are to be educated, it only remains, then, 
that they be educated together, subject to the gen- 
eral rule of society, that when a member is danger- 
ous to the safety or peace of his associates, he is to 
be excluded or restrained. Nor is this necessity of 
association destitute of moral advantages. If the 
comparatively good were separated from the rela- 
tively vicious, it is not improbable that the latter 
would soon fall into a state of barbarity. It seems to 
be the law of the school and of the world that the 
most rapid progress is made when the weight of 
public sentiment is on the side of improvement and 
virtue. It is not necessary for me to remark that 
such a public sentiment exists in every town and 
school district of the state ; but who would take the 
responsibility in any of these communities, great or 
small, of separating the virtuous classes from the 
dangerous classes ? Parents, from the force of their 
affections, are manifestly incompetent to do this ; 
and those who are not parents are probably equally 



Education and Crime. 71 

incompetent. But, if it were honestly accomplished, 
who would be responsible for the crushing effects of 
the measure upon those who were thus excluded 
from the presence and comj^anionship of the com- 
paratively virtuous ? These, often the victims of 
vicious homes, need more than others the influence 
and example of the good ; and it should be among 
the chief satisfactions of those who are able to train 
their own children in the ways of virtue, that thereby 
a healthful influence is exerted upon the less fortu- 
nate of their race. There is also in this course a 
wise selfishness ; for, although children may be sep- 
arated from each other, the circumstances of maturer 
years will often make the virtuous subject to the 
influence of the vicious. The safety of society, con- 
sidered individually or collectively, is not in the vir- 
tuous training of any part, however large the pro- 
portion, but in the virtuous training of all. I cannot 
deem it wise policy, whether parental or public, that 
takes the child from the school on account of the 
immoral associations that are ordinarily found there, 
or, on the other hand, that drives the vicious or 
unfortunate from the presence of those who are com- 
paratively pure. When it is considered that the 
school is often the only refuge of the unhappy sub- 
ject of orphanage, or the victim of evil family influ- 
ences, it seems an unnecessary cruelty to withhold 



72 Education and Crime. 

the protection, encouragement, and support, which 
may be so easily and profitably furnished. It is said 
that a sparrow pursued by a hawk took refuge in 
the bosom of a member of the sovereign assembly of 
Athens, and that the harsh Areopagite threw the 
trembling bird from him with such violence that it 
was killed on the spot. The assembly was filled 
with indignation at the cruelty of the deed ; the 
author of it was arraigned as an alien to that senti- 
ment of mercy so necessary to the administration of 
justice, and by the unanimous suffrages of his col- 
leagues was degraded from the senatorial dignity 
which he had so much dishonored. 

It does not seem necessary to ofier an argument 
in support of the position that the public school is 
not unfavorably afiected, morally, by the fact that it 
is subject to the popular judgment. This judgment 
can be rendered only at stated times, and under the 
forms and solemnities of law. The history of public 
schools would probably furnish but few instances of 
wrong in this respect. The people are usually sen- 
sitive in regard to the moral character of teachers ; 
they contribute liberally for the support of the 
schools, are anxious for their improvement, and there 
is no safer depositary of a trust that is essential to 
a nation in which is the hope of freedom and free 
institutions. 



Education and Crime. 73 

And, last, a school cannot be truly said to be des- 
titute of moral character and influence in which the 
sacred Scriptures are daily read. 

The observance of this requirement is a recogni- 
tion of the existence of the Supreme Being, of the 
Bible as containing a record of his will concerning 
men, and of the common duty of rational creatures 
to live in obedience to the obligations of morality 
and religion. 

It has been no part of my purpose, in this discus- 
sion of the public school as an institution fitted to 
promote morality, to deny the existence of serious 
defects, or to screen them from the eyes of men. 
The public school needs a more thorough discipline, 
a purer morality, a clearer conception and a more 
practical recognition of the truths of Christianity. 
But, viewed as a human institution, it claims the 
general gratitude for the good it has already accom- 
plished. The public school was established in Mas- 
sachusetts that " learning might not be buried in the 
graves of our foreftithers, in church and common- 
wealth ; ^' and, in some measure, at least, the early 
expectation thus quaintly expressed has been real- 
ized. Learning has ever been cherished and honored 
among us. The means of education have been the 
possession of all ; and the enjoyment of these means, 
often inadequate and humble, has developed a taste 
7 



74 Education and Crime. 

for learning, which has been gratified in higher insti- 
tutions ; and thus continually have the resources of 
the state been magnified, and its influence in the 
land has been efiicient in all that concerns the welfare 
of the human race on the American continent. 



REFOEMATION OF CHILDREN. 

[Address at the Inauguration of William E. Stark, Superintendent of the State 
Reform School at Westborough.] 

Neither the invitation of the Trustees nor my own 
convenience will permit a detailed examination of 
the topics which the occasion suggests ; and it is 
my purpose to address myself to those who are as- 
sembled to participate in the exercises of the day, 
trusting to familiar and unobserved visits for other 
and better opportunities for conference with the 
inmates of the institution. 

As the mariner, though cheered by genial winds 
and canopied by cloudless skies, tests and marks his 
position and course by repeated observations, so we 
now desire to note the progress of this humanity- 
freighted vessel in its voyage over an uncertain sea, 
yet, as we trust, toward lands of perpetual security 
and peace. All are voyagers on the sea of life. 
Some, with the knowledge of ancient days only, 
grope their way by headlands, or trust themselves 
occasionally to the guidance of the sun or the stars "; 
while others, with the chart and compass of the 

(75) 



76 Reformation of Children. 

Christian era, move confidently on their course, at- 
tracted by the Source and Centre of all good. And 
it is a blessing of this state of existence, though it 
may sometimes seem to be a curse, that the choice 
between good and evil yet remains. The wisdom of 
a right choice is here manifested in the benevolence 
of this foundation. 

The State Reform School for Boys has now enjoyed 
eight full years of life and progress ; and, though we 
cannot estimate nor measure the good it may have 
induced, .or the evil it may have prevented, yet 
enough of its history and results is known to justify 
the course of its patrons, both public and private, 
and to warrant the ultimate realization of their early 
cherished hopes. The state is most honored in the 
honor awarded to its sons ; and the name of Lyman, 
now and evermore associated with a work of benev- 
olence and reform, will always command the admira- 
tion of the citizens of the commonwealth, and 
stimulate the youth of the school to acquire and 
practise those virtues which their generous patron 
cherished in his own life and honored in others. 
Governor Washburn, in the Dedication Address, 
said, "We commend this school, with its o£Qcers 
and inmates, to a generous and grateful public, with 
the trust that the future lives of the young, who 
may be sent hither for correction and reform, may 



Reformation of Children. 77 

prove the crowning glory of an enterprise so auspi- 
ciously begun.'' Since these words were uttered, 
and this hope, the hope of many hearts, was ex- 
pressed, nearly two thousand boys, charged with 
various offences, — many of them petty, and others 
serious or even criminal, — have been admitted to 
the school ; and the chaplain, in his report for the 
year 1854, says that ''the institution will be instru- 
mental in saving a majority of those who come under 
its fostering care." This opinion, based, no doubt, 
upon the experience which the chaplain and other 
oflScers of the institution had had, is to be taken as 
possessing a substantial basis of truth ; and it at 
once suggests important reflections. 

Massachusetts is relieved of the presence of a 
thousand criminal, or, at best, viciously disposed 
persons. A thousand active, capable, industrious, 
productive, full-grown men have been created ; or, 
rather, a thousand consumers of the wealth of others, 
enemies of the public order and peace, have been 
transformed into intelligent supporters of social life, 
into generous, faithful guardians of public virtue and 
tranquillity. Nor would the influences of this de- 
graded population, if unreformed, have ceased with 
its own existence ; every succeeding generation 
must have gathered somewhat of a harvest of crime 
and woe. A thousand boys, hardened by neglect, 
7* 



78 Reformation of Children. 

educated in vice, and shunned by the virtuous, 
would, as men, have been efficient missionaries of 
lawlessness, wrong, and crime. And who shall 
estimate how much their reform adds, in its results, 
to the wealth, the intellectual, moral, and religious 
character, of the state ? The criminal class is never 
a producing class ; and the labor of a thousand 
men here reclaimed, if estimated for the period of 
twenty years only, is equal to the labor of twenty 
thousand men for one year, which, at a hundred 
dollars each, yields two millions of dollars. The 
pecuniary advantages of this school, as of all schools, 
we may estimate ; but there are better and higher 
considerations, in the elevated intellectual, moral, 
and religious life of the state, that are too pure, too 
ethereal, to be weighed in the balance against the 
grosser possessions and acquisitions of society. We 
thus get glimpses of the prophetic wisdom which led 
Mr. Lyman to say, '' I do not look on this school as 
an experiment ; on the contrary, it strikes me that it 
is an institution which will produce decidedly ben- 
eficial results, not only for the present day, but for 
many years to come. I do not, therefore, think that 
it should, even now, be treated in any respect in the 
light of an experiment, to be abandoned if not suc- 
cessful ; for, if the school is introduced to public 
notice on no better footing and with no more prepar- 



Reformation of Children. 79 

ation than usually attend trial-schemes of most kinds, 
the probability is that it will fail, considering the 
peculiar difficulties of the case.'^ Here is a high 
order of faith in its application to human affairs ; 
but Mr. Lyman saw, also, that the work to be per- 
formed must encounter obstacles, and that its prog- 
ress toward a perfect result would be slow. 

These obstacles have been encountered ; and yet 
the progress has been more rapid than the words of 
our founder imply. But are we not at liberty to for- 
get the trials, crosses, and perplexities, of this move- 
ment, as we behold the fruits, already maturing, of 
the wisdom and Christian benevolence of our hon- 
ored commonwealth ? 

We are assembled to review the past, and to 
gather from it strength and courage for the future ; 
and we may with propriety congratulate all, whether 
present or absent, who have been charged with the 
administration of this school, and have contributed 
their share, however humble, to promote these be- 
nign results. And we ought, also, to remember 
those, whether living or dead, whose faith and labors 
laid the foundation on which the state has built. Of 
the dead, I mention Lyman, Lamb, Denny, Wood- 
ward, Shaw, and Greenleaf, — all of whom, with 
money, counsel, or personal service, contributed to 
the plan, progress, and completion, of the work. 



80 Reformation of Children. 

The good that they have done is not interred with 
their bones ; and their example will yet find many 
imitators, as men more generally and more perfectly 
realize the importance of faith in childhood and 
youth, as the element of a true faith in our race. 
If this enterprise, in the judgment of its founder, 
was not an experiment ten years ago, it cannot be 
so regarded now ; yet the public will look with anx- 
iety, though with hope, upon every change of the 
officers of the institution. The trustees having 
appointed a new superintendent, he now assumes 
the great responsibility. It may not be second to 
any in the state ; yet a man of energy, who is in- 
fluenced by a desire to do good, and who will not 
measure his reward by present emoluments or tem- 
porary fame, can bear steadily and firmly the weight 
put upon him. The superintendent elect has been a 
teacher elsewhere, and he is to be a teacher here 
also. His work will not, in all particulars, corres- 
pond with the work that he has left ; yet the princi- 
ples of government and education are in substance 
the same. The head of a school always occupies a 
position of influence ; the characters of the children 
and youth confided to him are in a great degree sub- 
ject to his control. Here the teacher is neither aided 
nor impeded by the usual home influences. This 
institution is at once a home and a school ; and its 



Reformation of Children. 81 

head has the united power and responsibility of the 
parent and the teacher. Here are to be combined 
the social and moral influences of home, the religious 
influences of the Sunday-school, with the intellectual 
and moral training of the public school. He who 
to-day enters upon this work should have both faith 
and courage. He is to deal with the unfortunate 
rather than with the exceptional cases of humanity ; 
for all these are children whom the Father of the 
race, in his providence, has confided to earthly 
parents to be educated for a temporal and an immor- 
tal existence. That these parents, through crime, 
ignorance, indolence, carelessness, or misfortune, 
have failed in their work, is no certain evidence that 
we are to fail in ours. May we not hope to see in 
this school the kindness, consideration, affection, 
and forethought, of the parent, without the delusion 
which sometimes causes the father or mother to treat 
the vices of the child as virtues, to be encouraged ? 
And may we not expect from the superintendent, to 
whom, practically, the discipline of the school is con- 
fided, one characteristic of good government, not 
always, it is feared, found in punitive and reform- 
atory institutions ? I speak of the attributes of 
equality, uniformity, and certainty, in the administra- 
tion of the law. To be sure, a school, a prison, or a 
state, will suffer when its code is lax ; and it will 



82 Reformation of Children. 

also suffer when its system is oppressive or sanguin- 
ary ; but these peculiarities in themselves do not so 
often, in any community, produce dissatisfaction, dis- 
order, and violence, as an unequal, partial, and uncer- 
tain administration of the laws. If at times the 
laws are administered strictly according to the let- 
ter, and if at other times they are reluctantly 
enforced or altogether disregarded ; if it can never 
be known beforehand whether a violation is to be 
followed by the prescribed penalty — especially if this 
uncertainty becomes systematic, and a portion are 
favored, while the remainder are required to answer 
strictly for all their delinquencies ; and if, above all, 
these favored ones are recognized as sentinels, or 
spies, or informers in the service of the officers, — 
then not only will the spirit of insubordination man- 
ifest itself, but that spirit may ripen into alienations, 
feuds, and personal enmities, dangerous to the pros- 
perity of the institution. Here the scales of justice 
should be evenly balanced, and the boy should learn, 
from his own daily experience, to measure equal and 
exact justice unto others. I do not speak of sys- 
tems of government : they are essential, no doubt ; 
but they are not to be regarded as of the first im- 
portance in institutions for punishment or reforma- 
tion. Establish as wise a system as you can ; but 
never trust to that alone. Administer the system 



Reformation of Children. 83 

that you have with all the equality, uniformity, and 
certainty, that you can command. As a general 
truth, it may be said that the law is respected when 
these qualities are exhibited in its administration ; 
and, when these qualities are wanting, the spirit of 
obedience is driven from the hearts and minds of the 
people. 

But we are not to rely altogether, nor even chiefly, 
upon the visible weapons of authority. Especially 
must the mind and heart of childhood and youth be 
approached and quickened and strengthened by judi- 
cious appeals to the sentiments of veneration and 
love, and to the principles of the Christian faith. In 
this institution, one serious obstacle is present ; yet 
it may be overcome by energy, industry, and a spirit 
of benevolence. I speak of the large number of 
inmates to be superintended by one person. Men act 
in masses for the removal of general evils ; but the 
reformation of children must be individual, and to a 
great extent dependent upon the agency, or at least 
upon the cooperation, of the subjects of it. It is 
not easy for the superintendent to make himself 
acquainted with the persons and familiar with the 
lives of six hundred boys ; yet this knowledge is 
quite essential to the exercise of a salutary influence 
over them. He may be aided by the subordinate oflS- 
cers of the institution ; and that aid, under any cir- 



84 Reformation of Children. 

cumstances, he will need : but, after all, his own influ- 
ence and power for good will be measured by the 
extent of his personal acquaintance with the inmates 
as individuals. First, then, government is essential 
to this school ; not a reign of terror, but a govern- 
ment whose majesty, power, equality, certainty, uni- 
formity, and consequent justice, shall be experienced 
by all alike ; and, being experienced by all alike, will 
be respected, reverenced, and obeyed. 

And next the social, intellectual, and moral influ- 
ences of the school and the home should be com- 
bined and mingled, or else the visible forms of gov- 
ernment become a skeleton, merely indicating the 
figure, structure, and outline, of the perfect body, 
but destitute of the vital principle which alone could 
render it of any value to itself or to the world. 

This institution is not an end, but a means. The 
home itself is only a preparatory school for life. 
This is a substitute for the home, but is not, and 
never can be, its equal. It therefore follows that 
a boy should be removed whenever a home can be 
secured, especially if his reformation has been pre- 
viously so far accomplished as to render the comple- 
tion of the work probable. 

A great trust has been confided to the officers of 
the Reform School ; but the power to do good is 
usually proportionate to the responsibility imposed 



Reformation of Children. 85 

upon the laborer. In this view, much will be ex- 
pected ; but the expectations formed ought not to 
relate so much to results as to the wisdom and 
humanity with which the operations are conducted. 
Massachusetts is charged with the support of a 
great number of charitable and reformatory institu- 
tions. Their necessity springs from the defects of 
social life ; therefore their existence is a comparative 
rather than a positive good ; and he is the truest 
friend of the race who does most to remove the 
causes of poverty, ignorance, insanity, mental and 
physical weakness, moral waywardness, and crime. 



THE CARE AND REFORMATION OF THE NEGLECTED 
AND EXPOSED CLASSES OF CHILDREN. 

[An Address delivered at the opening of the State Industrial School for Girls, at 
Lancaster, Massachusetts.] 

In man's limited view, the moral world presents a 
sad contrast to the natural. The natural world is 
harmonious in all its parts ; but the moral world is 
the theatre of disturbing and conflicting forces, 
whose laws the finite mind cannot comprehend. 
The majesty and uniformity of the planetary revolu- 
tions, which bring day and night, summer and win- 
ter, seed-time and harvest, know no change. Worlds 
and systems of worlds are guided by a law of the 
Infinite Mind ; and so, through unnumbered years 
and myriads of years, birth and death, creation and 
decay, decrees whose fixedness enables finite minds 
to predict the future, and rules whose elasticity is 
seen in a never-ending variety of nature, all alike 
prove that the sin of disobedience is upon man 
alone. 

But, if man only, of all the varied creations of 

earth, may fall from his high estate, so to him only 

is given the power to rise again, and feebly, yet with 

(86) 



Training of Exposed Children. 87 

faith, advance towards the Divine Excellence. This, 
then, is the great thought of the occasion, to be 
accepted by the hearts and illustrated in the lives 
of all. The fallen may be raised up, the exposed 
may be shielded, the wanderers may be called home, 
or else this house is built upon the sand, and doomed 
to fall when the rains shall descend, the floods come, 
and the winds blow. The returning autumn, with 
its harvest of sustenance and wealth, bids us contem- 
plate again the mystery and harmony of the natural 
world. The tree and the herb produce seed, and 
the seed again produces the tree and the herb, each 
after its kind. There is a continued production and 
reproduction ; but of responsibility there is none. 
As there is no intelligent violation of law, there is 
no accountability. Man, however, is an intelligent, 
dependent, fallible, and, of course, responsible being. 
He is responsible for himself, responsible in some 
degree for his fellow-man. There is not a chapter 
in the history of the human race, nor a day of its 
experience, which does not show that the individual 
members are dependent upon, and responsible to, 
each other. This great fact, of six thousand years' 
duration, at once presents to us the necessity for 
government, and defines the limits of its powers and 
duties. Government, then, is a union of all for the 
protection and welfare of each. This definition pre- 



88 Training of Exposed Children. 

sents, in its principles and statement, the highest 
form of human government, — a form not yet per- 
fectly realized on earth. It sets forth rather what 
government ought to be, than what it has been or is. 
Too often historical governments, and living govern- 
ments even, may be defined as a union of a few for 
their benefit, and for the oppression of many. The 
reason of man has not often been consulted in their 
formation, and the interests and principles of the 
masses have usually been disregarded in their admin- 
istration. 

A true government is at once representative, patri- 
archal, and paternal. In the path of duty for this 
day and this occasion, we shall consider the last- 
named quality only, — governments should be pater- 
nal. The paternal government is devoted to the 
elevation and improvement of its members, with no 
ulterior motive except the necessary results of inter- 
nal purity and strength. Every government is, in 
some degree, no doubt, paternal. Nor are those 
governments to be regarded as eminently so, where 
the people are most controlled in their private, per- 
sonal affairs. These are mere despotisms ; and des- 
potism is not a just nor necessary element of the 
paternal relation. That government is most truly 
paternal which does most to enable its citizens or 
subjects to regulate their own conduct, and deter- 



Training of Exposed Children. 89 

mine their relations to others. In the midst of gen- 
eral darkness, the paternal element of government 
has been a light to the human race. It modified the 
patriarchal slavery of the Hebrews, relieved the iron 
rule of Sparta, made European feudalism the hope 
of civilization in the Dark Ages, and the basis of its 
coming glories in the near future ; and it now leads 
men to look with toleration upon the despotism of 
Russia, and with kindness upon the simplicity and 
arrogance of the Celestial Empire. 

We complain, justly enough, that the world is 
governed too much ; and yet, in a great degree, we 
neglect the means by which the proper relations of 
society could be preserved, and the world be gov- 
erned less. In what works are the so-called Chris- 
tian governments principally engaged ? Are they 
not seeking, by artifice, diplomacy, and war, to 
extend national boundaries, preserve national honor, 
or enforce nice distinctions against the timid and 
weak ? Yet it is plain that a nation is powerful ac- 
cording to the character of the living elements of 
which it is composed. If it is disorganized morally, 
uncultivated in intellect, ignorant, indolent, or waste- 
ful in its labor, its claims to greatness are destitute 
of solid foundation, and it must finally yield to those 
that have sought and gained power by the elevation 
of the individual as the element of the nation. 
8* 



90 Training of Exposed Children. 

That nation, then, is wise, and destined to become 
truly great, which cultivates the best elements of 
individual life and character. It is not enough to 
read the parable of the lost sheep, and of the ninety 
and nine that went not astray, and then say, " Even 
so, it is not the will of your Father which is in 
heaven that one of these little ones should perish," 
while the means of salvation, as regards the life of 
this world merely, are very generally neglected. 
Such neglect is followed by error and crime ; and 
error and crime are followed by judgment not always 
tempered with mercy. 

While human governments debate questions of 
war and peace, of trade and revenue, of annexations 
with ceremony, and appropriations of territory with- 
out ceremony, who shall answer to the Governor 
and Judge of all for the neglect, indifference, and 
oppression, which beget and foster the delinquencies 
of childhood, and harden the criminals of adult life ? 

And who shall answer for those distinctions of 
caste and systems of labor which so degrade and 
famish masses of human beings, that the divine mir- 
acle of the feeding of the five thousand must be 
multiplied many times over before the truths of 
nature or revelation can be received into teachable 
minds or susceptible hearts ? And who shall answer 
for the hereditary poverty, ignorance and crime, 



Training of Exposed Children. 91 

which constitute a marked feature of Engh'sh life, 
and are distinctly visible upon the face of American 
civilization ? These questions may point with suffi- 
cient distinctness to the sources of the evils enumer- 
ated ; but we are not to assume that mere human 
governments can furnish an adequate and complete 
remedy. Yet this admitted inability to do every- 
thing is no excuse for neglecting those things which 
are plainly within their power. Taking upon them- 
selves the parental character, forgetting that they 
have wrongs to avenge, and seeking reformation 
through kindness, criminals and the causes of crime 
will diminish, if they do not disappear. This is the 
responsibility of the nations, and the claim now made 
upon them. Individual civilization and refinement 
have always been in advance of national ; and na- 
tional character is the mirrored image of the indi 
vidual characters, not excepting the humblest, of 
which the nation is composed. Each foot of the 
ocean's surface has, in its fluidity or density or posi- 
tion, something of the quality or power of every 
drop of water which rests or moves in the depths of 
the sea. What is called national character is the 
face of the- great society beneath ; and, as that 
society in its elements is elevated or debased, so 
will the national character rise or fall in the 
estimation of all just men, and upon the page 



92 Training of Exposed Children. 

of impartial history. Government, which is the 
organized expression of the will of society, should 
represent the best elements of which society is 
composed ; and it ought, therefore, to combat 
error and wrong, and seek to inaugurate labor, 
justice, and truth, as the elements of stability, 
growth, and power. It must accept as its principles 
of action the best rules of conduct in individuals. 
The man who avenges his personal wrongs by per- 
sonal attacks or vindictive retaliation, must sacrifice 
in some measure the sympathy of the wise, the 
humane, and the good. So the nation which avenges 
real or fancied wrongs crushes out the elements of 
humanity and a higher life, which, properly culti- 
vated, might lead an erring mortal to virtue and 
peace. The proper object of punishment is not ven- 
geance, but the public safety and the reformation of 
the criminal. Indeed, we may say that the sole 
object of punishment is the reformation of the crim- 
inal ; for there can be no safety to the public while 
the criminal is unreformed. The punishment of the 
prison must, from its nature, be temporary ; perpetual 
confinement can be meted out to a few great crimes 
only. If, then, the result of punishment be ven- 
geance, and not reformation, the last state of society 
is worse than its first. The prison must stand a sad 
monument of the want of true paternal government 



Training of Exposed Children. 93 

in the family aod the state ; but, when it becomes 
the receptacle merely of the criminal, and all ideas 
of reformation are banished from the hearts of con- 
victs and the minds of keepers, its influence is evil, 
and only evil continually. 

Vice, driven from the presence of virtue, with no 
hope of reformation or of restoration to society, 
begets vice, and becomes daily more and more loath- 
some. Misery is so universal that some share falls 
to the lot of all ; but that misery whose depths can- 
not be sounded, whose heights cannot be scaled, is 
the fortune of the prison convict only, who has no 
hope of reformation to virtue or of restoration to the 
world. His is the only misery that is unrelieved ; 
his is the only burden that is too great to be borne. 
To him the foliage of the tree, the murmur of the 
brook, the mirror of the quiet lake, or the thunder 
of the heaving ocean, would be equally acceptable. 
His separation from nature is no less burdensome 
than his separation from man. The heart sinks, the 
spirit turns with a consuming fire upon itself, the 
soul is in despair ; the mind is first nerved and des- 
perate, then wandering and savage, then idiotic, and 
finally goes out in death. Governments cannot often 
afford to protect themselves, or to avenge themselves, 
at such a cost. There may be great crimes on which 



94 Training of Exposed Children. 

such awful penalties should be visited ; but, for the 
honor of the race, let them be few. 

We may err in our ideas of the true relations of 
the prison to the prisoner. We call a prison good 
or bad when we see its walls, cells, workshops, its 
means of security, and points of observation. These 
are very well. They are something ; but they are 
not all. We might so judge a hospital for the sick ; 
and we did once so judge an asylum for the insane. 

But what to the sick man are walls of wood, brick, 
granite, or marble ? What are towers and turrets, 
what are wards, halls, and verandas, if withal he is 
not cheered and sustained by the sympathizing heart 
and helping hand ? And similar preparations fur- 
nish for the insane personal security and physical 
comfort ; but can they 

** Minister to a mind diseased ; 
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow ; 
Raze out the written troubles of the brain ? " 

And it may be that the old almshouse at Philadel- 
phia, which was nearly destitute of material aids, and 
had only superintendent, matrons, and assistants, 
was, all in all, the best insane asylum in America. 

We cannot neglect the claims of security, disci- 
pline, and labor, in the erection of jails and prisons ; 
but to acknowledge these merely will never produce 



Training of Exposed Children. 95 

the proper fruit of punishment — reformation. In- 
deed, walls of stone, gates of iron, bolts, locks, and 
armed sentinels, though essential to security, with- 
out which there could be neither punishment nor 
reformation, are in themselves barriers rather than 
helps to moral progress. Standing outside, we can- 
not say what should be done either in the insane 
hospital or the prison ; but we can deduce from the 
experience of modern times a safe rule for general 
conduct. In the insane hospital the patient is to 
be treated as though he were sane ; and in the jail 
the prisoner is to be treated, nearly as may be, as 
though he were virtuous. This rule, especially as 
much of it as applies to the prisoner, may be reck- 
lessness to some, to others folly, to others sin. 

" The court awards it, and the law doth give it,'^ 
is no doubt the essence and strength of govern- 
mental justice in the sentence decreed ; but it would 
be a sad calamity if there were no escape from its 
literal fulfilment. And let no one borrow the words 
of Portia to the Jew, and say to the state, 

** Nor cut thou less nor more. 
But just a pound of flesh." 

As the criminal staggers beneath the accumulated 
weight of his sin and its penalty, he should feel that 
the state is not only just in the language of its law, 
but merciful in its administration ; that the govern- 



96 Training of Exposed Children. 

ment is, in truth, paternal. This feeling inspires 
confidence and hope ; and without these there can 
be no reformation. And, following this thought, we 
are led to say, it is a sad and mischievous public 
delusion that the pardoning power is useless or per- 
nicious. It is a delusion ; for it is the only means by 
which the state mingles mercy with its justice, — 
the means by which the better sentiments of the 
prison are marshalled in favor of order, of law, of 
progress. It is a public delusion ; for it has infected 
not only the masses of society, who know little of 
what is going on in courts and prisons, but its influ- 
ence is observed upon the bench and in the bar, 
especially among those who are accustomed to pros- 
ecute and try criminals. This is not strange, nor 
shall it be a subject of complaint ; but we must not 
always look upon the prisoner as a criminal, and 
continually disregard his claims as a man. It is not 
often easy, nor always possible, to make the proper 
distinction between the character and condition of 
the prisoner. But the prison, strange as it may 
seem, follows the general law of life. It has its 
public sentiment, its classes, its leading minds, as 
well as the university or the state ; it has its men of 
mark, either good or bad, as well as congress or 
parliament. As the family, the church, or the 
school, is the reflection of the best face of society, 



Training of Exposed Children. 97 

so the prison is the reflection of the worst face of 
society. But it nevertheless is society, and follows 
its laws with as much fidelity as the world at large. 

It is said that Abbe Fissiaux, the head of the 
colony of Marseilles, when visiting Mettray, a kind 
of reform school, at which boys under sixteen years 
of age, who have committed offences without dis- 
cernment, are sent, asked the colonists to point out 
to him the three best boys. The looks of the whole 
body immediately designated three young persons 
whose conduct had been irreproachable to an excep- 
tional degree. He then applied a more delicate test. 
''Point out to me,'' said he, ''the worst boy." All 
the children remained motionless, and made no sign ; 
but one little urchin came forward, with a pitiful air, 
and said, in a very low tone, ''It is 9?ie." Such 
were the public sentiment and sense of honor, even 
in a reform school. This frankness in the lad was 
followed by reformation ; and he became in after 
years a good soldier, — the life anticipated for many 
members of the institution. 

The pardoning power is not needed in reform and 
industrial schools, where the managers have discre- 
tionary authority ; but it is quite essential to the dis- 
cipline of the prison to let the light of hope into the 
prisoner's heart. Not that all are to enjoy the bene- 
fits of executive clemency, — by no means : only the 



98 Training of Exposed Children. 

most worthy and promising are to be thus favored. 
But, for many years, the Massachusetts prison has 
been improved and elevated in its tone and senti- 
ment above what it would have been ; while, as it is 
believed, over ninety per cent, of the convicts thus 
discharged have conducted themselves well. If the 
prisoner's conduct has not been, upon the whole, 
reasonably good, and for a long time irreproachable, 
he has no chance for clemency ; and, whatever may 
be his conduct, and whatever may be the hopes 
inspired, he should not be allowed to pass without 
the prison walls until a friend, labor, and a home, 
are secured for him. And the exercise of the par- 
doning power, if it anticipate the expiration of the 
legal sentence but a month, a week, or a day even, 
may change the whole subsequent life. Men, crim- 
inals, convicts, are not insensible to kindness ; and 
when the government shortens the legal sentence, 
which is usuall}^ their measure of justice, they feel 
an additional obligation to so behave as to bring 
no discredit upon a power which has been a 
source of inestimable joy to them. And prisoners 
thus discharged have often gone forth with a feeling 
that the hopes of many whom they had left behind 
were centred in them. 

Mr. Charles Forster, of Charlestowh, says, in a 
letter to me : "I have been connected with the Mas- 



Training of Exposed Children. 99 

Bachusetts State Prison for a period of thirty-eight 
years, and have always felt a strong interest in the 
improvement, welfare, and happiness, of the unfor- 
tunate men confined within its walls. I am conver- 
sant with many touching cases of deep and heartfelt 
gratitude for kindly acts and sympathy bestowed 
upon them, both during and subsequent to their im- 
prisonment.'' And the same gentleman says further, 
'' I think that the proportion of persons discharged 
from prison by executive clemency, who have subse- 
quently been convicted of penal offences, is very 
small indeed.'' To some, whose imaginations have 
pictured a broad waste or deep gulf between them- 
selves and the prisoner class, these may seem 
strange words ; but there is no mystery in this lan- 
guage to those who have listened to individual cases 
of crime and punishment. Men are tried and con- 
victed of crimes according to rules and definitions 
which are necessarily arbitrary and technical ; but 
the moral character of criminals is not very well 
defined by the rules and definitions which have been 
applied to their respective cases. Our prisons con- 
tain men who are great and professional criminals, 
— men who advisedly follow a life of crime them- 
selves, and deliberately educate generation after 
generation to a career of infamy and vice. As a 
general thing, mercy to such men would be unpar- 



100 Training of Exposed Children. 

donablc folly. Of them I do not now speak. But 
there is another class, who are involved in guilt and 
its punishment through the defects of early educa- 
tion, the misfortune of orphanage, accident, sudden 
temptation, or the influence of evil companionship in 
youth. 

The field from which this class is gathered is an 
extensive one, and its outer limits are near to every 
hearthstone. To all these, prison life, unless it is 
relieved by a hope of restoration to the world at the 
hand of mercy, is the school of vice, and a certain 
preparation for a career of crime. As a matter of 
fact, this class does furnish recruits to supply the 
places of the hardened villains who annually die, or 
permanently forsake the abodes of civilized men. 
What hope can there be for a young man who re- 
mains in prison until the last day of his sentence is 
measured by the sun in his course, and then passes 
into the world, with the mark of disgrace and the 
mantle of shame upon him, to the society of the com- 
panions by whose influence he first fell ? For such 
a one there can be no hope. And be it always 
remembered that there are those without the prison 
walls, as well as many within, who resist every 
effort to bring the wanderers back to obedience and 
right. I was present at the prison in Charlestown 
when the model of a bank-lock was taken from a 



Training of Exposed Children. 101 

young man whose term bad nearly expired. The 
model was cut in wood, after a plan drawn upon 
sand-paper by an experienced criminal, then recently 
convicted. This old offender was so familiar with 
the lock, that he was able to reproduce all its parts 
from memory alone. This fact shows the influence 
that may be exerted, even in prison, upon the char- 
acters of the young and less vicious. Now, can 
any doubt that these classes, as classes, ought to 
be separated ? Nor let the question be met by 
the old statement, that all communication between 
prisoners should be cut off. Humanity cannot 
defend, as a permanent system, the plan which 
shuts up the criminal, unless he is a murderer, 
from the light of the human countenance. Such 
penalties foster crimes, whose roots take hold of 
the state itself. 

The result of the exercise of the pardoning power 
is believed to have been, upon the whole, satisfac- 
tory. This is the concurrent testimony of officers 
and others whose opinions are entitled to weight. 
Permit the statement of a single case, to which 
many similar ones might be added. In a remote 
state of the West there is a respectable and suc- 
cessful farmer, who was once sentenced to the peni- 
tentiary for life. His crime was committed in a 
moment of desperation, produced by the contrast 
9* 



102 Training of Exposed Children. 

between a state of abject poverty in a strange land, 
at the age of twenty-three, and the recollection of 
childhood and youth passed beneath the parental roof, 
surrounded by the comforts and conveniences of the 
well-educated and well-conditioned classes of Eng- 
lish society. This, it is true, was a peculiar case. 
It was marked in the circumstances and enormity 
of the crime, and marked in the subsequent good 
conduct of the prisoner. But can any one ob- 
ject, that, after ten years^ imprisonment, this man 
was allowed to try his fortunes once more among 
his fellow-men ? Are there those who would have 
had no faith in his uninterrupted good conduct ; in 
the abundant evidence of complete reformation ; in 
the fact that, in prison and poverty and disgrace, 
he had allied to him friends of name and fortune and 
Christian virtues, who were ready to aid him in his 
good resolutions ? If any such there be, let them 
visit the solitary cell of the despairing convict, 
whose crime is so great that executive clemency 
fears to approach it. Crime and despair have made 
the features appalling ; all the worst passions of 
our nature riot together in the temple made for the 
living God ; and the death of the body is almost cer- 
tainly to be preceded by madness, insanity, and 
idiocy of the mind. Or, if any think that this per- 
son escaped with too light an expiation for so great 



Training of Exposed Children. 103 

a crime, let them recall the incident of the youth 
who was questioned because he looked with fond 
affection into the babbling face of the running brook, 
and, apologizing, as it were, in reply said, '' 0, yes, 
it is very beautiful, and especially to me, who have 
seen no water for four years, beside what I have had 
to drink ! '' 

Nor is it assumed, in all that is said upon this 
subject, that the laws are severe, or that the judicial 
administration of them is not characterized by jus- 
tice and mercy. In the ordinary course of affairs, 
the pardoning power is not resorted to for the cor- 
rection of any error or injustice of the courts ; but it 
is the means by which the state tempers its justice 
with mercy ; and, if the penalties for crime were less 
than they are, the necessity for the exercise of this 
power would still remain. It assumes that the 
object of the penal law is reformation ; and if this 
object, in some cases, can be attained by the exer- 
cise of the pardoning power, while the rigid execu- 
tion of the sentence would leave the criminal, as it 
usually will, still hardened and unrepenting, is it 
not wise for the state to benefit itself, and save the 
prisoner, by opening the prison-doors, and inviting 
the convict to a life of industry and virtue ? And 
let it never be forgotten, though it is the lowest 
view which can be taken of crime and prisons, that 



104 1 raining of Exposed Children. 

the criminal class is the most expensive class of 
society. In general, it is a non-producing class, 
and, whether in prison or out, is a heavy burden 
upon the public. The mere interest of the money 
now expended in prisons of approved structure is, 
for each cell, equal annually to the net income of a 
laboring man ; and professional thieves, when at 
large, often gather by their art, and expend in prof- 
ligacy, many thousand dollars a year. And here 
we see how much wiser it is, in an economical 
point of view, to save the child, or reform the man, 
than to allow the adult criminal to go at large, or 
provide for his safe-keeping at the expense of the 
state. 

Under the influence of the pardoning power, wise- 
ly executed, the commonwealth becomes a family, 
whose law is the law of kindness. It is the pater- 
nal element of government applied to a class of 
people who, by every process of reasoning, would 
be found least susceptible to its influence. It is the 
great power of the state, both in the wisdom re- 
quired for its judicious exercise, and in the benefi- 
cial results to which it may lead. Men may desire 
office for its emoluments in. money or fame; they 
may seek it in a spirit of rivalry, or for personal 
pride, or for the opportunity it brings to reward 
friends and punish enemies ; but all these are poor 



Training of Exposed Children. 105 

and paltry compared with the divine privilege, exer- 
cised always in reference to the public welflire, of 
elevating the prisoner to the companionship of men, 
and cheering him with words of encouragement on 
his entrance anew to the duties of life. 

Yet think not that the prison is a reformatory in- 
stitution : far from it. If the prison should be left to 
the influence of legitimate prison discipline merely, 
it is doubtful whether the sum of improvement 
would equal the total of degradation. This may be 
said of the best prisons of America, of New Eng- 
land. The prison usually contains every class, from 
the hardened convict, incarcerated for house-break- 
ing, robbery, or miurder, to the youth who expiates 
his first offence, committed under the influence of 
evil companions, or sudden temptation. The con- 
tact of these two persons must be injurious to one 
of them, without in any degree improving the other. 
Therefore the prison, considered without reference 
to the elevating influence of the pardoning power, 
has but little ability to reform the bad, and yet 
possesses a sad tendency to debase the compara- 
tively good. 

We miss, too, in the prison, another essential 
element of a reformatory institution. Reformation 
in individual cases may take place under the most 
adverse circumstances ; but an institution cannot 



106 Training of Exposed Children. 

be called reformatory unless its prevailing moral 
sentiment is actively, vigorously, and always, on 
the side of progress and virtue. This moral influ- 
ence must proceed from the officers of the institu- 
tion ; but it should be increased and strengthened 
by the sympathy and support of the inmates. This 
can hardly be expected of the prison. The number 
of adult persons experienced in crime and hardened 
by its penalties is usually so large, that the moral 
sentiment of the officers, and the weak resolutions 
of the small class of prisoners, who, under favorable 
circumstances, might be saved, are insufficient to 
give a healthy tone to the whole institution. The 
prison is a battle-field of vice and virtue, with the ad- 
vantage of position and numbers on the side of vice. 
Indeed, there can hardly be a worse place for the 
young or the inexperienced in crime. This is the 
testimony of reason and of all experience ; yet the 
public mind is slow to accept the remedy for the evil. 
It is a privilege to believe that the worst scenes of 
prison life are not found in the United States. Con- 
sider this case, reported in an English journal, The 
Ragged-School Magazine : 

*'D. F., aged about fourteen. Mother dead sev- 
eral years ; father a drunkard, and deserted him 
about three years ago. Has since lived as he best 
could, — sometimes going errands, sometimes beg- 



Training of Exposed Children. 107 

g'mg and thieving. Slept in lodging-houses when 
he had money ; but very often walked the streets 
at night, or lay under arches or door-steps. Has 
only one brother ; he lives by thieving. Does not 
know where he is ; has no other friend that he 
knows ; never learnt to read ; was badly off ; picked 
a handkerchief out of a gentleman's pocket, and 
was caught by a policeman ; sent to Giltspur-street 
Prison ; was fed on bread and water ; instructed 
every day by chaplain and schoolmaster ; much im- 
pressed with what the chaplain said ; felt anxious 
to do better ; behaved well in prison ; luas well 
flogged the morning he left; back bruised, but 7iot 
quite bleeding; was then turned into the street, 
ragged, barefooted, friendless, homeless, penniless ; 
walked about the streets till afternoon, when he 
received a penny from a gentleman to buy a loaf; 
met, next day, some expert thieves in the Minories ,* 
went along with them, and continues in a course of 
vagrancy and crime." 

And what else could have been expected ? The 
government, having sown tares, had no right to 
gather wheat. Yet, had this boy been provided 
with a home, either in a family or a reform school, 
with sufficient labor, and proper moral and intel- 
lectual culture, he might have been saved. Of the 
three thousand persons annually in prison at New- 



108 Training of Exposed Children. 

gate, four hundred are less than sixteen years of 
age ; and twenty thousand children and youth 
under seventeen years of age yearly pass through 
the prisons of England. " Many of the juvenile 
prisoners," it is said, " have been frequently in 
prison, and are very hardened. Some, from nine 
to eleven, have been in prison repeatedly, and have 
very little fear of it." 

The officers of the Liverpool Borough Jail are 
united in the opinion that, v^hen a boy comes once, 
he is almost certain to come again and again, until 
he is transported. And, of every one hundred 
young persons discharged from the principal prisons 
of Paris, seventy-jQve are in the custody of the law 
within the next three months. A professed thief 
said to the Rev. Mr. Clay, of England, " I am con- 
vinced of this, having too bitterly experienced it, 
that communication in a prison has brought thou- 
sands to ruin. I speak not of boys only, but of men 
and women also." And Mr. Hill, Recorder of Bir- 
mingham, says of the sentences imposed in his court, 
^' We are compelled to carry into operation an igno- 
rant and vengeful system, which augments to a fear- 
ful exttnt the very evils it was framed to correct." 
A few years ago, there was a lad in a New England 
prison whose experience is a pertinent illustration 
of the evil we are now considering. His father, a 



Training of Exposed Children. 109 

resident of a city, died while the boy was in infancy. 
He, however, soon passed beyond the control of his 
mother, and at an early age was selected by a brace 
of thieves, who petted, caressed, and humored him, 
until he was completely subject to their will. He 
was then made useful to them in their profession ; 
but at last they were all arrested while engaged in 
robbing a store, — the boy being within the build- 
ing, and the men stationed as sentinels without. In 
this case, the discretion of the court, which distin- 
guished in the sentence between the hardened vil- 
lains and the youth, was inadequate to the emer- 
gency. The child, unfit for the prison, and sure to 
be contaminated by it, ought to have been sent to a 
house of reformation, a reform school, or, perhaps 
better than either, to the custody of a well-regu- 
lated, industrious family. Now, in such cases, the 
distinction which the law, judicially administered, 
does not make, and cannot make, must be made by 
the executive in the wise exercise of the pardoning 
power. But this power, in the nature of things, has 
its limits ; and on one side it is limited to those who 
have been convicted of crime. 

At this point, we may see how faulty, and yet 
how constantly improving, has been the administra- 
tion of the criminal law. First, we have the prison 
without the pardoning power, except in cases of 
10 



110 Training of Exposed Children. 

mal-administration of the law, — a receptacle of the 
bad and good, where the former are not improved, 
and the latter are hurried rapidly on in the path of 
degradation and crime. Then we have the prison 
under the influence of the pardoning power, more or 
less wisely administered, but, in its best form, able 
only to arrest and counteract partially the tenden- 
cies to evil. Next, from the imperfections of this 
system an advancing civilization has evoked the 
Reform School, which gathers in the young crimi- 
nals and viciously inclined youth, and prepares 
them, by labor, and culture of the mind and heart, 
to resist the temptations of life. But this institu- 
tion seems to wait, though it may not always in 
reality do so, until the candidate is- actually a 
criminal. 

Hence the necessity which calls us to-day to con- 
sider the means adopted elsewhere, and the means 
now to be employed here, to save the young and 
exposed from the dangers which surround them. 

Passing, then, in review, ladies and gentlemen, the 
thoughts which have been presented, I deduce from 
them for your assent and support, if so it please you, 
the following propositions as the basis of what I have 
yet to say : 

I. Government, in the prevention and punishment 
of crime, should be paternal. 



Training of Exposed Children. Ill 

II. The object of punishment should be reforma- 
tion, and not revenge. 

III. The law of reformation in the state,, as in the 
family, is the law of kindness, 

IV. As criminals vary in age and in experience as 
criminals, so should their treatment vary. 

V. Prisons and jails are not, in their foundation 
and management, reformatory institutions, and only 
become so through influences not necessarily nor 
ordinarily acting upon them. 

VI. As prisons and jails deter from crime through 
fear only, exert very little moral influence upon the 
youth of either sex, and fail in many respects and 
in a majority of cases as reformatory institutions, 
we ought to avail ourselves of any new agency 
which promises success. 

Influenced, as we may reasonably suppose, by 
these or kindred sentiments, and aided by the no- 
blest exhibitions of private benevolence, the state 
has here founded a school for the prevention of 
crime. As we have everywhere among us schools 
whose leading object is the development of the intel- 
lect, so we now dedicate a school whose leading 
object is the development of the affections as the 
basis of the cardinal virtues of life. 

The design of this institution is so well expressed 



112 Training of Exposed Children. 

by the trustees, that it is a favor to us all for me to 
read the first chapter of the by-laws, which, by the 
consent of the Governor and Council, have been 
established : 

*' The intention of the state government, and of 
the benevolent individuals who have contributed to 
the establishment of this institution, is to secure a 
home and a school for such girls as may be presented 
to the magistrates of the state, appointed for that 
purpose, as vagrants, perversely obstinate, deprived 
of the control and culture of their natural guardians, 
or guilty of petty offences, and exposed to a life of 
crime and wretchedness. 

^' For such young persons it is proposed to pro- 
vide, not a prison for their restraint and correction, 
but a family school, where, under the firm but kind 
discipline of a judicious home, they shall be care- 
fully instructed in all the branches of a good educa- 
tion ; their moral affections be developed and culti- 
vated by the example and affectionate care of one 
who shall hold the relation of a mother to them ; be 
instructed in useful and appropriate forms of female 
industry ; and, in short, be fitted to become virtuous 
and happy members of society, and to take respecta- 
ble positions in such relations in life as Providence 
shall hereafter mark out for them. 

*' It is to be distinctly understood that the insti- 



Training of Exposed Children. 113 

tution is not to be considered ^ place of punishnnent, 
or its subjects as criminals. It is to be an inviting 
refuge, into which the exposed may be gathered to 
be saved from a course which would inevitably end 
in penal confinement, irretrievable ruin, or hopeless 
degradation. 

" The inmates are to be considered hopeful and 
promising subjects of appropriate culture, and to be 
instructed and watched over with the care and kind- 
ness which their peculiar exposures demand, and 
with the confidence which youth should ever inspire. 

*' The restraint and the discipline which will be 
necessary are to be such as would be appropriate in 
a Christian family or in a small boarding-school ; and 
the ' law of kindness ' should be written upon the 
heart of every officer of the institution. The chief 
end to be obtained, in all the culture and discipline, 
is the proper development of the faculties and moral 
afiections of the inmates, however they may have 
been heretofore neglected or perverted ; and to 
teach them the art, and aid them in securing the 
power, of self-government." 

Under the influence of these sentiments, we pass, 
if possible, in the work of reformation, from the rigor 
of the prison to the innocent excitement and rivalry 
of the school, the comfort, confidence and joys of 
home. This institution assumes that crime, to some 
10* 



114 Training of Exposed Children. 

extent at least, is social, local, or hereditary, in its 
origin ; that the career of hardened criminals often 
takes its rise in poverty, idleness, ignorance, orphan- 
age, desertion, or intemperance of parents, evil ex- 
ample, or the indifference, scorn and neglect of 
society. It assumes, also, that there is a period of 
life — childhood and youth — when these, the first 
indications of moral death, may be eradicated, or 
their influence for evil controlled. In this land of 
education, of liberty, of law, of labor and religion, 
we may not easily imagine how universal the enu- 
merated evils are in many portions of Europe. The 
existence of these evils is in some degree owing 
to institutions which favor a few, and oppress the 
masses ; but it is also in a measure due to the fact 
that Europe is both old and multitudinous. Amer- 
ica, though still young, is even now multitudinous. 
Hence, both here and there, crime is social and local. 
The truth of this statement is proportionate to the 
force of the causes in the respective countries. 

We are assembled upon a sloping hillside, over- 
looking a quiet country village. Happy homes are 
embowered in living groves, whose summer foliage 
is emblematical of innocence, progress, and peace. 
We have here a social life, with natural impulses, 
cultivated worldly interests, moral and religious 
sentiments, all on the side of virtue. Crime here is 



Training of Exposed Children. 115 

not social. If it appear at all, it is segregated ; and, 
as the burning taper expires when placed at the 
centre of the spirit lamp's coiling sheet of flame, so 
vice and crime cannot thrive in the genial embrace 
of virtue. 

Circumstances are here unfavorable to crime ; it is 
never social ; but sometimes, though not often, it is 
hereditary. A family for many generations seems to 
have a criminal tendency. Perhaps the members are 
not in any generation guilty of great crimes, but 
often of lesser ones ; and are, moreover, in the daily 
practice of vices that give rise to suspicion, neglect, 
and reproach. Here together are associated, and 
made hereditary, poverty, ignorance, idleness, beg- 
gary, and vagrancy. Surely these instances are not 
common, probably not so common as they were in 
the last generation. But how is the boy or girl of 
such a family to rise above these circumstances, and 
throw off these weights ? Occasionally one of great 
energy of character may do so ; but, if the children 
of more fortunate classes can scarcely escape the 
influence of temporary evil example, how shall they 
who are born to a heritage of poverty, ignorance, 
and ever-present evil counsel and conduct under the 
guise of parental authority, pass to the position of 
intelligent, industrious, respectable members of so- 
ciety ? Some external influence must be applied ; 



116 Training of Exposed Children. 

by some means from without, the spell must be 
broken ; the fatal succession of vicious homes must 
be interrupted. The family has here failed to dis- 
charge its duty to itself and to the state ; and shall 
not the state do its duty to itself, by assuming 
the paternal relation under the guidance of that 
law of kindness, which we have seen effectual to 
control the insane, and melt the hardened criminal ? 
But in cities we find vice, not only hereditary in 
families, but local and social ; so that streets and 
squares are given up, as it were, to the idle and 
vicious, whose numbers and influence produce and 
perpetuate a public sentiment in support of their 
daily practices. This phase of life is not due to the 
fact that cities are wealthy, or that they are engaged 
in manufactures or commerce ; but to the single fact 
that they are multitudinous, and their inhabitants 
are, therefore, in daily contact with each other, 
while, in the country, individuals and families are 
comparatively isolated. Yet some may very well 
doubt whether such an institution as this, with all 
the benign influences of home which we hope to see 
centred and diffusive here, will save a child of either 
sex, whose first years shall have been so unfavorable 
to a life of virtue. 

The answer is plain : as in other reformatory insti- 
tutions, there will be some successes and some fail- 



Training of Exposed Children. 117 

ures. The failures will be reckoned as they were ; 
the successes will be a clear gain. 

But investigation and trial will show a natural 
aptitude or instinct in children that will aid in their 
improvement and reformation. There has been in 
one of our public schools a lad, who, at the age of 
fourteen years, could not recall distinctly the circum- 
stances of his life previous to the time when he was 
a newsboy in the city of New York. He was igno- 
rant of father, mother, kindred, family name, and 
nation. At an early age, he travelled through the 
middle, southern and south-western states, engaged 
in selling papers and trash literature ; and, for a 
time, he was employed by a showman to stand out- 
side the tent and describe and exaggerate the attrac- 
tions within. When he was in his fourteenth year, 
he accepted the offer of a permanent home ; his 
chief object being, as he said, to obtain an educa- 
tion. *' I have found,'' said he, " that a man cannot 
do much in this country unless he has some learn- 
ing." This truth, simple, and resting upon a low 
view of education, may yet be of infinite value if 
accepted by those who, even among us, are advanc- 
ing to adult life without the preparation which our 
common schools are well fitted to furnish. And the 
case of this lad may be yet further useful by showing 
how compensation is provided for evils and neglects 



118 Training of Exposed Children. 

in mental and moral relations, as well as in the 
physical and natural world. Though ignorant of 
books, he was thoroughly and extensively ac- 
quainted with things, and consequently made rapid 
progress in the knowledge of signs ; for they were 
immediately applied, and of course remembered. In 
a few months, he took a respectable position among 
lads of his age. The world had done for this boy 
what good schools do not always accomplish, — 
made him familiar with things before he was troubled 
with the signs which stand for them. There is an 
ignorance in manhood ; an ignorance under the show 
of profound learning ; an ignorance for which schools, 
academies and colleges, are often responsible ; an 
ignorance that neither schools, academies nor col- 
leges, can conceal from the humblest intellects ; an 
ignorance of life and things as they are within the 
sphere of our own observation. From this most 
deplorable ignorance this boy had escaped ; and 
the light of learning illumined his mind, as the 
sun in his daily return reveals anew those forms of 
life, which, even in an ungenial spring and early 
summer, his rays had warmed into existence, and 
nourishied and cherished in their progress towards 
perfection. 

And, ladies and gentlemen, let us indulge the 
hope that the events of this day and the faith of this 



Training of Exposed Children. 119 

assembly will declare that it is possible to save the 
children of orphanage, intemperance, neglect, scorn 
and ignorance, from many of the evils which sur- 
round them. Let it not be assumed and believed 
that the task of training and saving girls is less 
hopeful than similar labors in behalf of the other 
sex. It has been found true in Europe, and it is a 
prevailing opinion in this country, that, among 
adults, the reformation of females is more difficult 
than the reformation of males. But an analysis of 
this fact, assuming it to be true, will unfold qualities 
of female character that render it peculiarly easy to 
shield and save girls who are exposed to a life of 
crime ; for, be it remembered, this institution deals 
with mere children, who are exposed, but not yet 
lost. It differs, in this respect, from most institu- 
tions, although many include this class with others. 
And it may be well to remark, that every reforma- 
tory school in Europe, even those altogether penal, 

— as Parkhurst in England, and Mettray in France, 

— have had some measure of success. Eighty-nine 
per cent, of the colons, or convicts, at Mettray, have 
become respectable and useful ; while, of the youth 
sent to the ordinary jails and prisons, seventy-five 
per cent, are totally lost. It is not fair, therefore, 
to assume that this attempt will fail. The degree 
of success will depend upon circumstances and 



120 Training of Exposed Children. 

causes, to a great extent, within human control. 
There are, however, three elements of success, so 
distinct that they may well stand as the appropri- 
ate divisions of what remains for consideration. 
They are the right action of the government ; the 
faithful conduct of superintendent, matrons, and 
assistants ; the sympathy and aid of the people of 
the state in matters which do not admit of legisla- 
tive interference. 

The act of the Legislature, though voluminous in 
its details, contemplates only this : A home for girls 
between seven and sixteen years of age, who are 
found " in circumstances of want and suffering, or 
of neglect, exposure, or abandonment, or of beg- 
gary. '^ The first idea of home precludes the possi- 
bility of the inmates being sent here as a punish- 
ment for crime ; therefore they are neither adjudged 
nor actual criminals, but persons exposed to a vi- 
cious life. Secondly, the idea of home involves the 
necessity of reproducing the family relation, as cir- 
cumstances may permit. Hence, the members of 
this institution are to be divided into families ; and 
over each a matron will preside, who is to be a kind, 
affectionate, discreet mother to the children. 

And here, for once, in Massachusetts, a public 
institution has escaped the tyranny of bricks and 
mortar ; and we are permitted to indulge the hope, 



Training of Exposed Children. 121 

that any future additions will tend to make this spot 
a neighborhood of unostentatious cottages, quiet 
rural homes, rather than the seat of a vast edifice, 
which may provoke the wonder of the sight-seer, 
inflame local or state pride, but can never be an 
effectual, economical agency in the work of reform- 
ation. Every public institution has some great 
object. Architecture should bend itself to that 
object, and become its servant ; and it must ever 
be deemed a mistake, when utility is sacrificed that 
art or fancy may have its way. 

Reformation, if wrought by external influences, 
is the result of personal kindness. Personal kind- 
ness can exist only where there is intimate per- 
sonal acquaintance ; this acquaintance is impossi- 
ble in an institution of two, three, or five hundred 
inmates. But, in a family of ten, twenty, or thirty, 
this knowledge will exist, and this kindness abound. 
Warm personal attachments will grow up in the 
family, and these attachments are likely to become 
safeguards of virtue. 

Nor let the objection prevail that the expense is 
to be increased. It is not the purpose to set up an 
establishment and maintain it for a specific sum of 
money, but to provide thorough mental and moral 
training for the inmates. Make the work efficient, 
11 



122 ' Training of Exposed Children. 

though it be limited to a small number, rather than 
inaugurate a magnificent failure. 

The state has wisely provided that the " trustees 
shall cause the girls under their charge to be in- 
structed in piety and morality, and in such branches 
of useful knowledge as shall be adapted to their age 
and capacity ; they shall also be instructed in some 
regular course of labor, either mechanical, manufac- 
turing, or horticultural, or a combination of these, 
and especially in such domestic and household labor 
and duties as shall be best suited to their age and 
strength, disposition and capacity ; also in such 
other arts, trades, and employments, as may seem 
to the trustees best adapted to secure their reforma- 
tion, amendment, and future benefit/' 

It is sometimes the bane of the poor that they do 
not work, and it is often equally the bane of the rich 
that they have nothing to do. The idle, both rich 
and poor, carry a weight of reproach that not all 
ought to bear. The disposition and the ability to 
labor are both the result of education ; and why 
should the uneducated be better able to labor than 
to read Greek and Latin ? Surely only that there 
are more teachers in one department than in the 
others ; but a good teacher of labor may be as 
uncommon as a good teacher of Latin or Greek. 
There is a false, vicious, unmanly pride, which leads 



Training of Exposed Children. 123 

our youth of both sexes to shun labor ; and it is the 
business of the true teacher to extirpate this growth 
of a diseased civilization. And we could have no 
faith in this school, if it were not a school of industry 
as well as of morality, — a school in which the divine 
law of labor is to be observed equally with the laws 
of men. Industry is near to all the virtues. In this 
era every branch of labor is an art, and sometimes 
it is necessary for the laborer to be both an artist 
and a scientific person. How great, then, the mis- 
fortune of those, whether rich or poor, who are unin- 
structed in the business of life ! We should hardly 
know what judgment to pass upon a man of wealth 
who should entirely neglect the education of his 
children in schools ; but the common indifference to 
industrial learning is not less reprehensible. Labor 
should be systematic ; not constant, indeed, but 
always to be reckoned as the great business of life, 
never to be avoided, never to cease. 

Labor gives us a better knowledge of the fulness, 
magnificence and glory, of the divine blessing of 
creation. This lesson may be learned by the farmer 
in the wonderful growth of vegetation ; by the artist, 
in the powers of invention and taste of the human 
mind and soul ; by the man of science, in the beauty 
of an insect or the order of a universe. The vision 
of the idle is limited. The ability to see may be 



124 Training of Exposed Children. 

improved by education as much as the ability to 
read; remember, or converse. With many people, 
not seeing is a habit. Near-sighted persons are 
generally those who declined to look at distant 
objects ; and so nature, true to the most perfect 
rules of economy, refused to keep in order faculties 
that were entirely neglected. The laborer's recom- 
pense is not money, nor the accumulation of worldly 
goods chiefly ; but it is in his increased ability to 
obsei*ve, appreciate, and enjoy the world, with its 
beauties and blessings. Nor is labor, the penalty 
for sin, a punishment merely, but a divine means of 
reformation. It is, therefore, a moral discipline that 
all should submit to ; and especially is it a means by 
which the youth here are to be prepared for the 
duties of life. But industry is not only near to all 
the virtues ; it is itself a virtue, as idleness is a vice. 
The word labor is, of course, used in the broadest 
signification. Labor is any honest employment, or 
use of the head or hands, which brings good to our- 
selves, and consequently, though indirectly, brings 
good to our fellow-men. 

The state has now furnished a home, reproduced, 
as far as practicable, the family relation, and pro- 
vided for a class of neglected and exposed girls the 
means of mental, industrial, moral, and religious 
culture. The plan appears well ; but its practical 



Training of Exposed Children. 125 

value depends upon the fidelity of its execution by 
the superintendent, matrons and assistants. I ven- 
ture to predict in advance, that the degree of success 
is mainly within their control. This is a school, they 
are the teachers ; and they must bend to the rule 
which all true teachers willingly accept. 

The teacher must be what he would have his 
pupils become. This was the standard of the great 
Teacher ; this is the aim of all who desire to make 
education a matter of reality and life, and not 
merely a knowledge of signs and forms. Here will 
be needed a spirit and principle of devotion which 
will be fruitful in humility, patience, earnestness, 
energy, good words and works for all. Here must 
be strictness, possibly sternness of discipline ; but 
this is not incompatible with the qualities men- 
tioned. It is a principle at Mettray to combine 
unbounded personal kindness with a rigid exclusion 
of personal indulgence. 

This principle produces good results that are two- 
fold in their influence. First, personal kindness in 
the teacher induces a reciprocal quality in the 
pupils. The habit of personal kindness, proceed- 
ing from right feelings, is a potent element of good 
in the family, the school, and the prison. Indeed, it 
is an element of good citizenship ; and no one desti- 
tute of this quality ought to be intrusted with the 
11* 



126 Training of Exposed Children. 

education of children, or the punishment and reform- 
ation of criminals. 

Secondly, the rigid exclusion of personal indulg- 
ence trains the inmates in the virtue of self-control. 
And may it not be forgotten that all apparent 
reformation must be hedged by this cardinal virtue 
of practical life I Otherwise the best-formed expect- 
ations will fail ; the highest hopes will be disap- 
pointed ; and the life of these teachers, and the 
promise of the youth who may be gathered here, 
will be like the sun and the winds upon the desert, 
which bring neither refreshing showers nor fruitful 
harvests. Every form of labor requires faith. This 
labor requires faith in yourselves, and faith in 
others ; — faith in yourselves, as teachers here, 
based upon your own knowledge of what you are 
and are to do ; and faith in others upon the divine 
declaration that God breathed into man the breath 
of life, and he became a living soul, — not merely as 
the previous creations, possessed of animal life ; but 
as a sentient, intellectual, and moral being, capable 
of a progressive, immortal existence. 

" 'T is nature's law 
That none, the meanest of created things, 
* *i i^ * * 

Should exist 
Divorced from good, — a spirit and pulse of good. 



Training of Exposed Children. 127 

A life and soul, to every mode of being 
Inseparably linked. 

See, then, your only conflict is with men ; 
And your sole strife is to defend and teach 
The unillumined, who, without such care. 
Must dwindle," 

And always, as in the beginning, the reliance of 
this school is upon the people of the commonwealth, 
whose voice has spoken into existence another in- 
strumentality to give eyes to the blind, ears to the 
deaf, a heart for the work of this life, and a hope for 
an hereafter, to those who from neglect and vicious 
example would soon pass the period of reformation. 
But may the people always bear in mind the indis- 
putable truth, that schools for the criminal and the 
exposed yield not their perfect fruits in a day or a 
year I They must, if they will know whether the 
seed here planted produces a harvest, wait for the 
birth and growth of one generation, the decay and 
death of another. Yet these years of delay will not 
be years of uncertainty. The public faith will be 
strengthened continually by cases of reformation, 
usefulness, and virtue. But, whether these cases 
be few or many, let no one despond. The career 
of the criminal is, often in money and always in 
influence, the heaviest burden which an individual 
can impose upon society. 



128 Training of Exposed Children. 

This is a school for girls ; and we may properly 
appeal to the women of Massachusetts to do their 
duty to this institution, and to the cause it repre- 
sents. We can already see the second stage in the 
existence of many of those who are to be sent here ; 
and there is good reason to fear that the relation of 
mistress and servant among us is in some degree 
destitute of those moral qualities that make the 
house a home for all who dwell beneath its roof. 
But, whether this fear be the voice of truth or the 
suggestion of prejudice, that woman shall not be 
held blameless, who, under the influence of indo- 
lence, pride, fashion, or avarice, shall neglect, abuse, 
or oppress, the humblest of her sex who goes forth 
from these walls into the broad and dangerous path 
of life. But this day shall not leave the impression 
that they who are most interested in the elevation 
and refinement of female character are indifferent to 
the means employed, and the results which are to 
wait on them. 

The greatest delineator of human character in this 
age says, as the images of neglected children pass 
before his vision : 

" There is not one of them — not one — but sows 
a harvest mankind must reap. From every seed of 
evil in this boy a field of ruin is grown that shall be 
gathered in, and garnered up, and sown again in 



Training of Exposed Children. 129 

many places in the world, until regions are over- 
spread with wickedness enough to raise the waters 
of another deluge. Open and unpunished murder in 
a city's streets would be less guilty in its daily tol- 
eration than one such spectacle as this. There is 
not a father, by whose side, in his daily or nightly 
walk, these creatures pass ; there is not a mother 
among all the ranks of loving mothers in this land ; 
there is no one risen from the state of childhood, but 
shall be responsible, in his or her degree, for this 
enormity. There is not a country throughout the 
earth on which it would not bring a curse. There 
is no religion upon earth that it would not deny ; 
there is no people on earth that it would not put to 
shame.'' 

This institution, then, in the true relation of 
things, is not the glory of the state, but its shame. 
It speaks of families, of schools, of the church, of 
the state, not yet educated to the discharge of their 
respective duties in the right way. But it is the 
glory of the state as a visible effort to correct evils, 
atone for neglects, and compensate for wrongs. It 
comes to do, in part at least, what the family, the 
school, the press, the library, the Sabbath, have 
not yet perfectly accomplished. As these agen- 
cies partially failed, so will this ; but, as the law 
of progress exists for all, because perfection with 



130 Training of Exposed Children. 

us is unattainable, we may reasonably have faith 
in human improvement, and trust that the life of 
each succeeding generation shall unite, in ever- 
increasing proportions, the innocence of childhood 
with the wisdom of age. 



ELEMENTARY TRAINING IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 

[Extract from the Twenty-Second Annual Report of the Secretary of the Massa- 
chusetts Board of Education.] 

We are stiU sadly defective in methods of educa- 
tion. Until recently teaching was almost an unknown 
art ; and we are at present struggling against igno- 
rance without any well-defined plan, and attempting 
to develop and build up the immortal character of 
children, without a philosophical and generally ac- 
cepted theory of the nature of the human mind. 
There are complaints that the duties and exactions 
of the schools injure the health and impair the con- 
stitutions of pupils ; that the progress in intellectual 
attainments is not always what it should be ; that 
the training given is sometimes determined by the 
wishes of committees against the better judgment 
of competent teachers ; that the text-books are 
defective ; that the studies in the common schools 
are too numerous ; that the elements are conse- 
quently neglected ; and that, in fine, too much 
thought is bestowed upon exhibitions and contests 
for public prizes, to the injury of good learning, 

(131) 



132 Elementary Education. 

and of individual and general character. For these 
complaints there is some foundation ; but care 
should be exercised lest incidental and necessary 
evils become, in the public estimation, great wrongs, 
and exceptional cases the evidence of general 
facts. 

It is to some extent true that the duties and 
exactions of the schools seriously test the health of 
pupils ; but it is, as I believe, more generally true 
that many pupils are physically unable to meet the 
ordinary and proper duties of the school-room. 
School life, as usually conducted, is physically inju- 
rious, and our best efforts thus far have been limited 
to the dissemination of elementary knowledge of 
physiology as a science, and to an acquaintance 
with a limited number of important physiological 
facts. Yet even here little has been accomplished 
in comparison with what may be done. In this 
department there is much instruction given that 
has no practical value, and children are often per- 
mitted to live in daily and uniform neglect of the 
most essential truths of science and the facts of 
human experience. Neither physiology nor hygiene 
can be of much value in the schools, as a study, unless 
there is an application of what is taught. Great pro- 
ficiency cannot be made in these branches in the 
brief period of school life ; but a competent teacher 



Elementary Education. 133 

may induce the pupils to put in practice the lessons 
that are applicable to childhood and youth. If, 
however, as is sometimes the case, pupils are 
undermining the physical constitution in their efforts 
to know how they are made, the loss is, unquestion- 
ably, more than the gain. Physical health and 
growth depend, first, upon opportunity ; and hence 
it happens that, where physical life is most defective, 
there the greatest difficulties in the way of its im- 
provement are found. Boys, born in the country, 
living upon farms, accustomed continually to out- 
door labors and sports, walking a mile or more every 
day to school, have but little use, in their own per- 
sons, for the science or facts of physiology ; and it 
is a very rare thing, where such conditions have ex- 
isted, that any teacher is able to exact an amount of 
intellectual service that proves in any perceptible 
degree injurious. 

But these opportunities are not so generally enjoyed 
by girls, and the mass of children in cities are wholly 
deprived of them. In the country, and even in vil- 
lages and towns of considerable size, there is no 
excuse, better than ignorance or indifference, for the 
lack of judicious and efficient physical training of 
children and youth of both sexes. But ignorance 
and indifference are facts ; and, while and where 
they exist, they are prejudicial to the growth of 
12 



134 Elementary Education. 

mind and body. The age at which children should 
be admitted to school has not been ascertained, nor 
can a satisfactory rule upon this point ever be laid 
down. If children are not in schools, they are yet 
subject to influences that are formative of character. 
When proper government and methods of education 
exist at home, the presence of the cliild in school at 
an early age is not desirable. Even when education 
at home Is not methodical, it may be continued until 
the child is seven or even eight years of age, if it is at 
once moral, intelligent, and controlling. It is not, 
however, wise to expect a child who is infirm physi- 
cally to perform the labors imposed by the necessary 
and proper regulations of school. When children 
enjoy good health, and are not blessed with suitable 
training at home, they may be introduced to the 
school, at the age of five years, with positive ad- 
vantage to themselves and to society. 

When the child is a member of the school, what 
shall be done with him ? He must first be taught to 
take an interest in the exercises by making the exer- 
cises interesting to him. That the transition from 
home to the school may be easy, he should first 
occupy himself with those topics and studies that 
are presented to the eye and to the ear, and may be 
mastered, so as to produce the sensation that follows 
achievement with only a moderate use of the reason- 



Elementary Education. 135 

ing and reflective faculties. Among these are read- 
ing, writing, music, and drawing. This is also the 
time when object lessons may be given with great 
advantage. The forms and names of geometrical 
solids may be taught. Exercises may be introduced 
tending to develop those powers by which we com- 
prehend the qualities of color, size, density, form, 
and weight. Important moral truths may be pre- 
sented with the aid of suitable illustrations. In every 
school the teacher and text-books may be considered 
a positive quality which should balance the nega- 
tive power of the school itself. In primary schools 
text-books have but little value, and the chief reli- 
ance is, therefore, upon the teacher. Instruction 
must be mainly oral ; hence the mind of the teacher 
should be well furnished, and her capacities chas- 
tened by considerable experience. As the pupils are 
unable to study, the teacher must lead in all their 
exercises, and find profitable employment for the 
children, or they will give themselves up to play or 
to stupid listlessness. Of these alternatives, the lat- 
ter is more objectionable than the former. 

It is, of course, not often possible for a teacher to 
occupy herself six hours a day with a single class in 
a primary school, especially if she confines her atten- 
tion to the studies enumerated. In many schools, of 
various grades, gymnastic exercises have been intro- 



136 Elementary Education. 

duced with marked advantage. There are many 
such exercises which do not need apparatus, and in 
which the teacher can properly lead. 

These furnish a healthful variety to the studies usu- 
ally pursued, and they prepare the pupils to receive 
appropriate instruction in sitting, standing, and in the 
•modulation and use of the voice. Indeed^ gymnastic 
exercises are indispensable aids to proper training in 
reading, which, as an art of a high order, is imme- 
diately dependent upon position, habits of breathing, 
the consequent power of voice, and expressiveness 
of tone. I am fully satisfied that much more may 
be done in the early period of school life than is 
usually accomplished. In the district mixed schools 
the primary pupils receive but little attention, and 
they are not infrequently occupied from one to three 
years in obtaining an imperfect knowledge of the 
alphabet. Usually much better results are attained 
by the combined agency of the home and the school, 
but there is an average loss of one-fourth of the time 
employed in teaching and learning the elements of 
our language. 

Mr. Philbrick, Superintendent of Public Schools in 
Boston, has taught and trained a class of fifty pri- 
mary-school pupils with a degree of success which 
fully sustains the statement of the average waste in 
schools generally. Twenty-two lessons of a half- 



Elementary Education. 137 

hour each were given ; and in this brief period of 
time the class, with a few exceptions, were so well 
advanced that they could write the alphabet in cap- 
ital and script hand, give the elementary sounds of 
the letters, produce and name the Arabic characters 
and the common geometrical figures found upon 
Holbrook's slates. I saw a girl, five and a half 
years of age, write the alphabet without delay in 
script hand, in a manner that would have been cred- 
itable to a pupil in a grammar school. 

I present Mr. Philbrick's own account of his mode 
of proceeding, in an extract from his third quarterly 
report to the school committee of the city of Boston. 

'' The regulations relating to the primary schools 
require every scholar to be provided with a slate, 
and to employ the time not otherwise occupied in 
drawing or writing words from their spelling les- 
sons, on their slates, in a plain script hand. It is 
further stated, in the same connection, that the 
teachers are expected to take special pains to teach 
the first class to write — not print — all the letters 
of the alphabet on slates. 

" The language of this requirement seems to 
imply that the classes below the first are to draw 
and write words, in a plain script hand, without any 
special pains to teach them, and that by such occu- 
pation they were to be kept from idleness. As I 
12* 



iS8 Elementary Education. 

saw neither of these objects accomplished in any 
primary school, I thought it worth while to satisfy 
myself, by actual experiment, what can and ought 
to be done, in the use of the slate and blackboard, 
in teaching writing and drawing in primary schools. 
To accomplish this object, I have given a course of 
lessons in a graded or classified school of the third 
class. The number of pupils instructed in the class 
was about fifty. The materials of the school are 
rather below the average ; about twenty of the 
pupils being of that description usually found in 
schools for special instruction. The school-room is 
furnished, as every primary school-room should be, 
with stationary chairs and desks, and Holbrookes 
primary slates. Twenty-two lessons, of from thirty 
to forty minutes each, were given, about one-third 
of the time being devoted to drawing, and two-thirds 
to writing. As to the method pursued, the main 
points were, to present but a single element at a 
time ; to illustrate on the blackboard defects and 
excellences in execution ; frequent review of the 
ground passed over, especially in the first steps of 
the course ; a vigorous exercise of all the mental 
faculties requisite for the performance of the task ; 
and a desire for improvement, encouraged and stim- 
ulated by the best and strongest available motives ; 



Elementary Education. 139 

the greater part of the time being bestowed upon 
the dull and backward pupils. 

" The result has exceeded my expectations. About 
three-fourths of the number taught can draw most 
of the simple mathematical lines and figures, given 
as copies on the slates used, with tolerable accuracy, 
and write all the letters of the alphabet in a fair script 
hand. This experiment satisfies me that, with the 
proper facilities, the three upper classes in graded 
primary schools can be taught to write the letters of 
the alphabet in a plain script hand, and even to join 
them into words, without any material hindrance to 
the other required studies ; and, moreover, that the 
great remedy for the complaint of want of time, in 
these schools, is the increase of skill in the art of 
teaching." 

It is well known that in this country and in Europe 
methods of teaching the alphabet have been intro- 
duced which materially diminish the labor of teach- 
ers, and lessen the drudgery to which children are 
usually subjected. The alphabet is taught as an 
object lesson. The object is usually an animal, plant, 
or flower. More frequently the first. The mind of 
the child is awakened either by the presence of the 
animal, or by a brief but vivid description of its 
characteristics. The children are first required to 
pronounce properly the name of the animal. Here 



140 Elementary Education. 

is an opportunity for training in the use of the voice, 
and in the art of breathing, with which the general 
health, as well as the vocal power, is intimately- 
connected. The word which is the name of the 
animal is analyzed into its elementary sounds. It 
may then be reconstructed without the aid of visible 
signs, either written or printed. Next the teacher 
produces the signs which stand for the several 
sounds, and gives their names. The letters are 
presented in any way that suits the teacher. There 
may be no better method than to produce them upon 
the blackboard, as this course encourages the pupils 
to draw them upon their slates, and thus they are at 
once, and without formal preliminaries; engaged in 
writing. 

An outline of the animal may be drawn upon the 
blackboard, which the pupils will eagerly copy; and 
though this exercise may not be valuable in a high 
degree, as preparation for the systematic study of 
drawing, yet it trains the perceptive and reflective 
faculties in a manner that is pleasant to the great 
majority of children. It is also in the power of the 
teacher, at any point in the exercises, and with 
reference both to variety and usefulness, to give the 
most apparent facts, which to children are the most 
interesting facts, in the natural history of the animal. 
This plan contemplates instruction in pronunciation 



Elementary Education. 141 

in connection with exercises in breathing, in the 
elementary sounds of words both consonant and 
vowel, in the names of letters, in writing and draw- 
ing, to all of which may be added something of 
natural history. It is of course to be understood 
that such exercises would be extended over many 
lessons, be subject to frequent reviews, and val- 
uable in proportion to the teacher's ability to 
interest children. The outline given is suggest- 
ive, merely, and it is not presented as a plan of 
a model course ; but enough has been done and 
is doing in this department to warrant increased 
attention, and to justify the belief that a degree of 
progress will soon be made in teaching the elements 
that will mark the epoch as a revolution in educa- 
tional affairs. It is to be observed that the system 
indicated requires a high order of teaching talent. 
Only thorough professional culture, or long and 
careful experience, will meet the claims of such a 
course. It is quite plain, however, that no advan- 
tage would arise from keeping pupils in school six 
hours each day ; and that, regarding only the intel- 
lectual advancement of the child during the element- 
ary course, his presence might be reduced to two 
hours, or possibly in some cases to one : provided, 
always, that he could enjoy, with his class asso- 
ciates, the undivided attention of the teacher. In 



142 Elementary Education. 

this view of the subject, it would be possible, 
where the primary schools are graded, as in por- 
tions of the city of Boston, for one teacher to 
take charge of two classes or schools, each for an 
hour in the forenoon and an hour in the afternoon. 
This arrangement would apply only to the younger 
pupils ; yet I am aware that parents and the public 
would be solicitous concerning the manner of em- 
ploying the time that would remain. In the cities 
this question is one of magnitude, and there are 
strong reasons for declining any proposition to 
reduce the school day full one-half, which does not 
provide occupation for the children during the 
remainder of the time. It is only in connection 
with such a proposition that projects for gymnastic 
training are practicable. When children are em- 
ployed six hours in school, it is not easy to find time 
for a course of systematic physical education ; and 
physical education, to be productive of appreciable 
advantages, must be systematic. When left to 
children and youth, or to the care of parents, very 
little will be accomplished. Children will participate 
in the customary sports, and perform the allotted 
labors ; but in cities these sports and labors are 
inadequate even for boys, and in country, as well as 
city, girls are often the victims of neglect in this 
respect. Availing ourselves, then, of the light 



Elementary Education. 14.3 

shed by recent experience upon the subject of 
primary instruction, it seems possible to dimin- 
ish the length of the school day with a gain rather 
than a loss of educational power. This change 
may be followed by the establishment, in cities 
and large towns, of public gymnasiums, where 
teachers answering in moral qualifications to the 
requisitions of the laws shall be employed, and 
where each child, for one, two, or three years, shall 
receive discreet and careful, but vigorous physical 
training. After a few years thus passed in corres- 
ponding and healthful development of the mind and 
body, the pupil is prepared for admission to the 
advanced schools, where he can submit, with perfect 
safety, to greater mental requirements even than are 
now made. The school, as at present constituted, 
cannot do much for physical education ; and it must, 
as a necessity and a duty, graduate its demands to 
the physical as well as the intellectual abilities of 
its pupils. But I am satisfied that it is occasionally 
made to bear a weight of reproach that ought to be 
laid upon the customs and habits of domestic, social 
and general life. 

Assuming that the principal work of the primary 
schools, after moral and physical culture, should be 
to give instruction in reading, spelling, writing, 
music and drawing, it is just to say that special 



144 Elementary Education. 

attention should be bestowed upon tlie two branches 
first named. So imperfectly is reading sometimes 
taught, that pupils are found in advanced classes, 
and in advanced schools, whose progress in other 
branches is retarded by their inability to read the 
language fluently and intelligently. When children 
are well educated in reading, they find profitable 
employment ; and they are, of course, by the knowl- 
edge of language acquired, able to comprehend, 
with greater facility, every study to which they are 
called. 

Pupils often appear dull in grammar, geography 
and arithmetic, merely because they are poor readers. 
A child is not qualified to use a text-book of any 
science until he is able to read with facility, as we 
are accustomed to speak, in groups of words. This 
ability he cannot acquire without a great deal of 
practice. If phonetic spelling is commenced with 
the alphabet, he will be accurately trained in that 
art also. It is certain that reading, writing and 
spelling, have been neglected in our schools gen- 
erally. 

If there is to be a reform, it must be commenced, 
and in a considerable degree accomplished, in the 
primary schools. These studies will be taught after- 
wards ; but the grammar and high schools can never 
compensate for any defect permitted, or any wrong 



Elementary Education. 145 

done, in the primary schools. Reading is first 
mechanical, and then intellectual and emotional. In 
the primary schools attention is first given to mechan- 
ical training, while the intellectual and emotional 
culture is necessarily in a degree postponed. "When 
the first part of the work is thoroughly done, there 
is no ground for complaint, and we may look to the 
teachers of advanced classes and schools for the 
proper performance of the remaining duty. The 
abihty to spell arbitrarily, either in writing or orally, 
and the ability to read mechanically, — that is, the 
ability to seize the words readily, and utter them 
fluently and accurately, — must be acquired by much 
spelling and much reading. 

This work belongs to the early years of school- 
life ; and, if it can be faithfully performed, the intro- 
duction of text-books in grammar, geography and 
arithmetic, may be wisely postponed. But it is a 
sad condition of things, which we are often com- 
pelled to contemplate, when a pupil, who might 
have become a respectable reader had the elementary 
training been careful, accurate and long-continued, 
is introduced to an advanced class, and there strug- 
gles against obstacles which he cannot comprehend, 
and which the teacher cannot remove, and finally 
leaves the school without the ability to read in a 
manner intelligible to himself, or satisfactory to 
13 



146 Elementary Education. 

others. It is the appropriate work of primary 
schools; and of the teachers of primary classes in 
district schools, to develop and chasten the moral 
powers of children, to train them in those habits and 
practices that are favorable to health and life, 
whether anything is known of physiology as a sci- 
ence or not, and to give the best culture possible to 
the eye, the ear, the hand and the voice. This plan 
is comprehensive enough for any teacher, and it will 
be found sufficient for any pupil less than ten years 
of age. Nor am I speaking of that culture which is 
merely preparatory for the life of the artist, but of 
that practical training which will enable the subject 
of it so to use his powers as to render his life valu- 
able to himself, and valuable to the world. There 
will be, in the exercises comprehended by this out- 
line, sufficient mental discipline. It will, of course, 
be chiefly incidental, and it may well be doubted 
whether studies that are merely disciplinary should 
ever be introduced into our schools. There are 
useful occupations for pupils that, at the same time, 
tax and test the mind sufficiently. The plan in- 
dicated does not exclude grammar, geography and 
mental arithmetic, but text-books will not at first be 
needed. Grammar should be taught by conversa- 
tion, and in connection with the exercises in read- 
ing. Grammar is the appreciation of the power of 



Elementary Education. 147 

the words of the language in any given relations to 
each other, and a knowledge of grammar is essential 
to the ability to speak, read and write properly. 
Therefore, grammatical rules and definitions are, or 
should be, deduced from the language. Hence 
children should be first trained to speak with accu- 
racy'', so that habit shall be on the side of taste and 
science ; next the offices which words perform in 
simple sentences should be illustrated and made 
clear. And thus far without text-books ; when, 
finally, with their help, the pupils in the higher 
schools may acquire a knowledge of the science, 
and, at once, as the result of previous training, 
discern the reason for each rule and definition. The 
study of grammar requires some use of mental 
power ; but when it is presented to pupils by the 
aid of an object which, in itself and in what it does, 
illustrates the subject and the predicate of a sen- 
tence, the work of comprehending the offices which 
words perform is rendered comparatively easy. 
Having the skeleton thus furnished, and with the 
eyes and minds of the pupils fixed upon an object 
that possesses known and appreciable powers and 
qualities, it is not difficult for the teacher to con- 
struct a sentence that shall contain words of several 
parts of speech, all understood, because the gram- 
matical office of each was seen even before the word 



148 Elementary Education. 

itself was used. This work may be commenced 
when the child is young, and very satisfactory 
results ought to be secured as soon as the pupil 
is in other respects qualified to enter a grammar 
school. The pupil should be trained in reading as 
an art ; that is, with the purpose of expressing 
whatever is intellectual and emotional in the text. 
Satisfactory results cannot at first be secured by 
much reading ; it seems wiser for the teacher to 
select an extract, paragraph, or single sentence 
only, and drill a pupil or a class until the meaning 
of the author is comprehended, and accurately or 
even artistically expressed. This can be done only 
when the teacher reads the passage again and again 
in the best manner possible. The contrary practice 
of reading volumes of extracts from the writings of 
the most gifted men of ancient and modern times, 
without preparation by the pupil, without example, 
explanation, correction, or questionings, by the 
teacher, cannot be too strongly condemned. The 
time will come when these selections may be read 
with profit ; but it is better to read something well 
than to read a great deal ; or there should be at 
least thorough drill in connection with every exer- 
cise, until the pupils have attained some degree of 
perfection. It may not be best to confine advanced 
pupils to the exercises in the text-books. If such 



Elementary Education. 149 

pupils are invited occasionally to make selections 
from their entire range of reading, the teacher will 
have an opportunity to correct whatever is vicious 
in taste ; and the pupil making the selection will be 
compelled to read in such a manner that those who 
listen can understand, which is not always the case 
when the language is addressed to the eye as well 
as to the ear. 

The introduction of Colburn's Intellectual Arith- 
metic was an epoch in the science. It wrought a 
radical change in the ability of the people to apply 
the power of numbers to the practical business of 
life. Its excellence does not consist in rules and 
illustrations by which examples and problems are 
easily solved, but in leading the mind of the pupil 
into natural and apparent processes of reasoning, by 
which he is enabled to comprehend a proposition 
as an independent fact. Herein is a mental disci- 
pline of great value, not only in the sciences, but in 
the daily affairs of men of all classes and conditions. 
It is to be feared that equally satisfactory results 
have not been attained in what is called written 
arithmetic. This partial failure deserves considera- 
tion. The first cause may be found in an erroneous 
opinion concerning the difference between mental 
and written arithmetic. Written arithmetic is men- 
tal arithmetic merely, with a record at given stages 
13* 



150 Elementary Education. 

of the process of what at that point is accomplished. 
But, as written arithmetic tends to lessen the power 
of the pupil for the performance of those operation^ 
that are purely mental, he should be subjected, each 
day, to a searching and rapid drill in mental arith- 
metic also. This neglect on the part of teachers 
explains the singular fact that pupils, well trained 
in mental arithmetic, after attending to written 
arithmetic for three or six months, appear to have 
lost rather than gained in their knowledge of the 
science as a whole. 

The second cause of failure may be found in the 
fact that rules, processes and simple methods of 
solution, contained in the books, are substituted for 
the power of comprehension by the pupil. He 
should be trained to seize an example mentally, 
whether the slate is to be used or not, and hold it 
until he can determine by what process the solution 
is to be wrought. Nor is it a serious objection that 
he may not at first avail himself of the easiest 
method. The difference between methods or ways 
is altogether a subordinate consideration. There 
may be many ways of reaching a truth, but no one 
of them is as important as the truth itself The 
text-books should contain all the facts needed for 
the comprehension and the solution of the examples 
given ; the teacher should furnish explanations and 



Elementary Education. 151 

other aids, as they are needed ; but the practice of 
adopting a process and following it to an apparently 
satisfactory conclusion, without comprehending the 
problem itself, is a serious educational evil, and it 
exerts a permanent pernicious influence. 

The remarks I have now made upon methods of 
teaching, which may seem to have been offered in a 
spirit of severe criticism, should be qualified and 
relieved by the statement that our teachers are as 
well educated as any in the country, and that they 
are yearly making progress in their profession. 
Indeed, I am encouraged to suggest that better 
things are possible, by the consideration that many 
instances of distinguished success in teaching the 
alphabet, reading and grammar, are known to me ; 
and that teachers are themselves aware that the 
work is, upon the whole, inadequately performed. 
If, as. is generally conceded, the highest order of 
teaching talent is required in the primarj^ schools, 
then that talent should be sought out by' commit- 
tees ; the persons possessing it should enjoy the 
best means of preparation ; they should receive the 
highest rewards, both in money and public consid- 
eration, and they should be induced to labor, with- 
out change or interruption, in the same schools and 
among the same people. 



THE RELATIVE MERITS OF PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOLS 
AND ENDOWED ACADEMIES. 

[Remarks before the American Institute of Instruction, at Manchester, N. H.] 

Indebted to my friend on the other side, and to 
you, sir, and this audience, for inviting me to take a 
position on this floor, I am still without any special 
preparation to discuss the subject. I have thought 
upon it, because any one, however humbly connected 
with free schools in this country, must have done 
so. And especially just now, when, in the educa- 
tional journal of Massachusetts, a discussion has 
been conducted between one of its editors and Mr. 
Gulliver, the able originator of a school in Norwich, 
Ct., and the advocate of the system of school gov- 
ernment established there. And, therefore, every 
one who has had his eyes open must have seen that 
here is a great contest, and that underlying it is a 
principle which is important to society. 

The distinguishing difference between the advo- 
cates of endowed schools and of free schools is this : 
those who advocate the system of endowed acade- 
mies go back in their arguments to one foundation, 

(152) 



Public and Private Schools. 153 

which is, that in education of the higher grades the 
great mass of the people are not to be trusted. And 
those who advocate a system of free education in high 
schools put the matter where we have put the rights 
of property and liberty, where we put the institu- 
tions of law and religion — upon the public judgment. 
And we will stand there. If the public will not 
maintain institutions of learning, then, I say, let in- 
stitutions of learning go down. If I belong to a state 
which cannot be moved from its extremities to its 
centre, and from its centre to its extremities, for the 
maintenance of a system of public instruction, then, 
in that respect, I disown that state ; and if there be 
one state in this Union whose people cannot be 
aroused to maintain a system of public instruction, 
then they are false to the great leading idea of Ameri- 
can principles, and of civil, political, and religious 
liberty. 

It is easy to enumerate the advantages of a sys- 
tem of public education, and the evils — I say evils — • 
of endowed academies, whether free or charging pay- 
ment for tuition. Endowed academies are not, in all 
respects, under all circumstances, and everywhere, 
to be condemned. In discussing this subject, it may 
be well for me to state the view that I have of the 
proper position of endowed academies. They have a 
place in the educational wants of this age. This is 



154 Public and Private Schools. 

especially true of academies of the highest rank, 
which furnish an elevated and extended course of 
instruction. To such I make no objection, but I 
would honor and encourage them. Yet I regard 
private schools, which do the work usually done 
in public schools, as temporary, their necessity as 
ephemeral, and I think that under a proper public 
sentiment they will soon pass away. They cannot 
stand, — such has been the experience in Massachu- 
setts, — they cannot stand by the side of a good 
system of public education. Yet where the popula- 
tion is sparse, where there is not property sufficient 
to enable the people to establish a high school, then 
an endowed school may properly come in to make 
up the deficiency, to supply the means of education 
to which the public wealth, at the present moment, 
is unequal. Endowed institutions very properly, 
also, give a professional education to the people. 
At this moment we cannot look to the public to give 
that education which is purely professional. But 
what we do look to the public for is this : to furnish 
the means of education to the children of the whole 
people, without any reference to social, pecuniary, 
political, or religious distinctions, so that every per- 
son may have a preliminary education sufficient for 
the ordinary business of life. 

It is said that the means of education are better in 



Public and Private Schools. 155 

an endowed academy, or in an endowed free school, 
than they can be in a public school. AVhat is meant 
by means of education ? I understand that, first 
and chiefly, as extraneous means of education, we 
must look to a correct public sentiment, which shall 
animate and influence the teacher, which shall give 
direction to the school, which shall furnish the 
necessary public funds. An endowed free academy 
can have none of these things permanently. Take, 
for example, the free school established at Nor- 
wich by the liberality of thirty or forty gentlemen, 
wlio contributed ninety thousand dollars. What 
security is there that fifty years hence, when the 
educational wants of the people shall be changed, 
when the population of Norwich shall be double or 
treble what it is now, when science shall make greater 
demands, when these forty contributors shall have 
passed away, this institution will answer the wants 
of that generation ? According to what we know 
of the history of this country, it will be entirely in- 
adequate ; and, though none of us may live to see 
the prediction fulfilled or falsified, I do not hesitate 
to say that the school will ultimately prove a failure, 
because it is founded in a mistake. 

Then look and see what would have been the state 
of things if there had been public spirit invoked to 
establish a public high school, and if the means for 



156 Public and Private Schools. 

its support had been raised by taxation of all the 
people, so that the system of education would have 
expanded according to the growth of the city, and 
year by year would have accommodated itself to the 
public wants and public zeal in the cause. Though 
these means seem now to be ample, they will by and 
by be found too limited. The school at Norwich is 
encumbered with regulations ; and so every endowed 
institution is likely to be, because the right of a man 
to appropriate his property to a particular object 
carries with it, in the principles of common law, and 
in the administration of the law, in all free govern- 
ments, the right to declare, to a certain extent, how 
that property shall be applied. Rules have been 
established — very proper and judicious rules for to- 
day. But who knows that a hundred years hence 
they will be proper or acceptable at all ? They have 
also established a board of trustees, ultimately to 
be reduced to twenty-five. . These trustees have 
power to perpetuate themselves. Who does not see 
that you have severed this institution from the public 
sentiment of the city of Norwich, and that ultimately 
that city will seek for itself what it needs ; and that, 
a hundred years hence, it will not consent to live, in 
the civilization of that time, under the regulations 
which forty men have now established, however wise 
the regulations may at the present moment be ? 



Public and Private Schools. 157 

One hundred and fifty years ago, Thomas Hollis, 
of London, made a bequest to the university at Cam- 
bridge, with a provision that on every Thursday a 
professor should sit in his chair to answer questions 
in polemic theology. All well enough then ; but 
the public sentiment of to-day will not carry it out. 

So it may be with the school at Norwich a hun- 
dred years hence. The man or state that sacrifices 
the living public judgment to the opinion of a dead 
man, or a dead generation, makes a great mistake. 
We should never substitute, beyond the power of 
revisal, the opinion of a past generation for the opin- 
ion of a living generation. I trust to the living men 
of to-day as to what is necessary to meet our exist- 
ing wants, rather than to the wisest men who lived 
in Greece or Rome. And, if I would not trust the 
wise men of Greece and Rome, I do not know why 
the people, a hundred years hence, should trust the 
wise men of our own time. 

And then look further, and see how, under a sys- 
tem of public instruction, you can build up, from 
year to year, in the growth of the child, a system 
according to his wants. Private instruction cannot 
do this. What do we do where we have a correct 
system ? A child goes into a primary school. He 
is not to go out when he attains a certain age. He 
might as well go out when he is of a certain 
14 



158 Public and Private Schools. 

height ; there would be as much merit in one case 
as in the other. But he is advanced when he has 
made adequate attainments. Who does not see that 
the child is incited and encouraged and stimulated 
by every sentiment to which you should appeal? 
And, then, when he has gone up to the grammar 
school, we say to him, " You are to go into the high 
school when you have made certain attainments." 
And who is to judge of these attainments ? A com- 
mittee appointed by the people, over whom the peo- 
ple have some ultimate control. And in that control 
they have security for two things : first, that the 
committee shall not be suspected of partiality ; and 
secondly, that they shall not be actually guilty of 
partiality. In the same manner, there is security 
for the proper connection between the high school 
and the schools below. But in the school at Nor- 
wich — of which I speak because it is now promi- 
nent — you have a board of twenty-five men, irre- 
sponsible to the people. They select a committee of 
nine ; that committee determines what candidates 
shall be transferred from the grammar schools to the 
high school. May there not be suspicion of par- 
tiality ? If a boy or girl is rejected, you look for 
some social, political, or religious influence which 
has caused the rejection, and the parent and child 
complain. Here is a great evil ; for the real and 



Public and Private Schools. 159 

apparent justice of the examination and decision by 
which pupils are transferred from one school to 
another is vital to the success of the system. 

There is another advantage in the system of pub- 
lic high schools, which I imagine the people do not 
always at first appreciate. It is, that the private 
school, with the same teachers, the same apparatus, 
and the same means, cannot give the education 
which may be, and usually is, furnished in the pub- 
lic schools. This statement may seem to require 
some considerable support. We must look at facts 
as they are. Some people are poor ; I am sorry 
for them. Some people are rich, and I congratulate 
them upon their good fortune. But it is not so 
much of a benefit, after all, as many think. It is 
worth something in this world, no doubt, to be rich ; 
but what is the result of that condition upon the 
family first, the school afterwards, and society 
finally ? It is, that some learn the lesson of life a 
little earlier than others ; and that lesson is the les- 
son of self-reliance, which is worth more than — I 
will not say a knowledge of the English language — 
but worth more than Latin or Greek. If the great 
lesson of self-reliance is to be learned, who is more 
likely to acquire it early, — the child of the poor, or 
the child of the rich ; the child who has most done 
for him, or the child who is under the necessity of 



160 Public and Private Schools. 

doing most for himself ? Plainly, the latter. Now, 
while a system of public instruction in itself cannot 
be magnified in its beneficial influences to the poor 
and to the children of the poor, it is equally, bene- 
ficial to the rich in the facility it affords for the in- 
struction of their children. Is it not worth some- 
thing to the rich man, who cannot, from the circum- 
stances of the case, teach self-reliance around the 
family hearth, to send his child to school to learn 
this lesson with other children, that he may be stim- 
ulated, that he may be provoked to exertions which 
he would not otherwise have made ? For, be it re- 
membered that in our schools public sentiment is as 
well marked as in a college, or a town, or a nation ; 
that it moves forward in the same way. And the 
great object of a teacher should be to create a public 
sentiment in favor of virtue. There should be some 
pioneers in favor of forming a correct public senti- 
ment ; and when it is formed it moves on irresistibly. 
it is like the river made up of drops from the moun- 
tain side, moving on with more and more power, 
until everything in its waters is carried to the 
destined end. 

So in a public school. And it is worth much 
to the man of wealth that there may be, near his 
own door, an institution to which he may send his 
children, and under the influence of which they may 



Public and Private Schools. 161 

be carried forward. For, depend upon it, after all 
we say about schools and institutions of learning, 
it is nevertheless true of education, as a statesman 
has said of the government, that the people look to 
the school for too much. It is not, after all, a great 
deal that the child gets there ; but, if he only gets 
the ability to acquire more than he has, the schools 
accomplish something. If you give a child a little 
knowledge of geography or arithmetic, and have not 
developed the power to accomplish something for 
himself, he comes to but little in the world. But put 
him into the school, — the primary, grammar, and 
high school, where he must learn for himself, — and 
he will be fitted for the world of life into which he is 
to enter. 

You will see in this statement that, with the same 
parties, the same means of education, the same 
teachers, the public schools will accomplish more 
than private schools. 

I find everywhere, and especially in the able ad- 
dress of Mr. Gulliver, to which I have referred, that 
the public schools are treated as of questionable 
morality, and it is implied that something would 
be gained by removing certain children from the 
influence of these schools. If I were speaking 
from another point of view, very likely I should 
feel bound to hold up the evils and defects which 
14* 



162 Public and Private Schools. 

actually exist in public schools ; but wben I con- 
sider them in contrast with endowed and private 
schools, I do not hesitate to say that the public 
schools compare favorably ; and, as the work of edu- 
cation goes on, the comparison will be more and 
more to their advantage. Why ? I know some- 
thing of the private institutions in Massachusetts ; 
and there are boys in them who have left the public 
schools because they have fallen in their classes, 
and the public interest would not justify their con- 
tinuance in the schools. It was always true that 
private schools did not represent the world exactly 
as it was. It is worth everything to a boy or girl, 
man or woman, to look the world in the face as it is. 
Therefore, the public school, when it represents 
the world as it is, represents the facts of life. The 
private school never has done and never will do 
this ; and as time goes on, it will be less and less a 
true representative of the world. From this point 
of view, it seems to be a mistake on the part of 
parents to exclude their children from the world. 
Is it not better that the child should learn some- 
thing of society, even of its evils, when under your 
influence, and when you can control him by your 
counsel and example, than to permit him finally 
to go out, as you must when his majority comes, 
perhaps to be seduced in a moment, as it were, from 



Public and Private Schools. 163 

his allegiance to virtue? Virtue is not exclusion 
from the presence of vice ; but it is resistance to vice 
in its presence. And it is the duty of parents to 
provide safeguards for the support of their children 
against these temptations. When Cicero was called 
on to defend Murgena against the slander that, as 
he had lived in Asia, he had been guilty of certain 
crimes, and when the testimony failed to substan- 
tiate the charge, the orator said, " And if Asia does 
carry with it a suspicion of luxury, surely it is a 
praiseworthy thing, not never to have seen Asia, but 
to have lived temperately in Asia.^^ And we have 
yet higher authority. It is not the glory of Christ, 
or of Christianity, that its Divine Author was with- 
out temptation, but that, being tempted, he was 
without sin. This is the great lesson of the day. 

The duty of the public is to provide means for the 
education of all. To do that, we need the political, 
social, and moral power of all, to sustain teachers 
and institutions of learning ; and endowed or free 
schools, depending upon the contributions of individ- 
uals, can never, in a free country, be raised to the 
character of a system. If you rob the public schools 
of the influence of our public-spirited men, if they 
take away a portion of their pupils from them, our 
system is impaired. It must stand as a whole, educat- 
ing the entire people, and looking to all for support, 
or it cannot be permanently maintained. 



THE HIGH SCHOOL SYSTEM. 

[An Address delivered at the Dedication of the Powers Institute, Bernardston.] 

There cannot be a more gratifying spectacle than 
the universal homage offered to education and to 
the young. Childhood is attractive in itself; and 
it is peculiarly an object of solicitude for its prom- 
ises concerning the future. Hence the labors of 
philanthropists, reformers, and Christians, as well 
as of teachers, are devoted to the culture and im- 
provement of the rising generation, as the chief 
security possible for the prevalence of better ideas 
in the state and in the world. 

Massachusetts has been peculiarly favored in the 
means of education ; and we ought ever to recognize 
the divine influence in the wisdom which led our 
fathers to lay the foundations of a system that con- 
templated the education of the whole people. The 
power of this great idea, universal education, has 
not been limited to Massachusetts ; the states of 
the West, the states of the South, receive it as the 
basis of a wise public policy ; and had our ancestors 
contributed nothing else to the glory of the republic, 

(164) 



The High School System. 165 

they would yet be entitled to the distinguished con- 
sideration of every age and people. The vigor of 
our culture and the hardihood of our institutions are 
more manifest out of Massachusetts than in it. The 
immigrant in his new home in the great valley of 
prairies, on the northern shores of the American 
lakes, in Oregon, California, or the islands of the 
Pacific, invokes the spirit of New England in the 
establishment of a free church and a free school. 
And in the spirit and discipline of New England, 
the thoughts of her sons are turned homeward in 
adversity, seeking consolation at the sources of 
early, vigorous, and happy life ; or, in prosperity, 
that they may offer, in gratitude to man and to God, 
some tribute, always noble, however humble, to the 
principles and institutions that first formed their 
characters, and then controlled their destiny ; or, 
in old age, the wanderer, like Jacob in Egypt, with 
his blessing upon the tribes and families of men, 
says, ''I am to be gathered unto my people ; bury 
me with my fathers.'' This occasion and its honors 
are due to the memory of him whose name this insti- 
tution bears ; and his last will and testament is an 
illustration, or rather the cause, of these prefatory 
remarks. As the reasonably extended and emi- 
nently prosperous life of your wise benefactor ap- 
proached its close, he, in the principles of Old 



166 The High School System. 

England and of New England, ordered and directed 
the payment of all his just debts ; and then, sec- 
ondly, expressed the wish, "if practicable, to be 
buried by the side of his parents in the cemetery at 
Bernardston/' First justice, and then affection for 
parents, kindred, and home, animated the vital, 
never-dying soul, as the life of the body ebbed and 
flowed, and flowed and ebbed, to flow no more. 
For every good the ancients imagined and named 
a divinity ; and there is in every good something 
divine. 

We do not deify the living nor the dead ; yet 
such foundations and institutions as the Lawrence 
Scientific School, the Peabody Institute, the Powers 
Institute, will bear to a grateful posterity a knowl- 
edge of the virtues of their respective founders, and 
of the exactness, rectitude, and wisdom, of the public 
sentiment which religiously consecrates the means 
provided to the ends proposed. 

But just eulogy of the dead is the appropriate 
duty of those who were the associates and friends 
of the founder of this school. — It will be my pur- 
pose, in the humble part I take in the services of 
this honored occasion, to point out, as I may be 
able, the connection between learning and wisdom, 
and then, by the aid of some general remarks upon 
education, to examine the fitness of this foundation, 



The High School System. 167 

and the rules here established, to promote human 
progress and virtue. 

The actual available power of a state is in its 
adult population ; but its hope is in the classes of 
children and youth whose plastic minds yield to 
good influences, and are moulded to higher forms 
of beauty than have been conceived by Italian or 
Grecian art. Excellence is always adorable and to 
be adored. If it appear in beauty of person, it com- 
mands our admiration ; and how much more ought 
wisdom, which is the beauty of the mind and the 
excellency of the soul, to be cultivated and cher- 
ished by every human being 1 " For what is there, 
0, ye gods!'' says Cicero, "more desirable than 
wisdom ? What more excellent and lovely in it- 
self? What more useful and becoming for a man ? 
Or what more worthy of his reasonable nature ? " 

But wisdom cannot be acquired in a day, nor 
without devotion and toil. It is the achievement 
of a life. It is to be pursued carefully through 
schools, colleges, and the world, — to be mastered 
by study, intense thought, rigid mental discipHne, 
and an extensive acquaintance with the best authors 
of ancient and modern times. It is not the child of 
ease, indolence, or luxury ; and it is well that it is 
not. The best of human possessions are cheapened 
when their attainment is no longer diflficult. The 



168 The High School System. 

wealth of California and Australia has made silver, 
as an article of luxury, the rival of gold ; and the 
pearl loses its beauty when the mountain streams 
are as fertile as the depths of the sea. Wisdom 
comprehends learning, but learning is often found 
where wisdom is wanting. Wisdom is not accom- 
plishment in study, or perfection in art, or suprem- 
acy in poetry or eloquence. Learning is essential to 
wisdom, for we cannot imagine a wise man who is 
not also a learned man ; and the extent and soundness 
of his learning may be a measure of his wisdom. 
Wisdom must always have a basis of learning, but 
learning is not always a basis of wisdom. Learning 
is a knowledge of particulars, of details ; wisdom is 
such a combination of these particulars as enables 
us to harmonize our lives with the laws of nature 
and of God. 

Learning is manifested in what we know ; wisdom 
in what we are, based upon what we know. Philos- 
ophy, even, is love for wisdom rather than wisdom 
itself. The old philosophers defined wisdom to be 
"the knowledge of things, both divine and human, 
together with the causes on which they depend ; " 
and in the proverb of Solomon, " The fear of the 
Lord is the instruction of wisdom.'^ Purity, truth, 
and justice, are also of its foundation. Wise men of 
the Jewish and Pagan world built on this founda- 



The High School System. 169 

tion, and the Christian can build on none other. 
Having combined learning with these essential vir- 
tues, a liberal, symmetrical, comprehensive charac- 
ter may be built up. In the formation of such a 
character, industry, powers of observation, strength 
of will and intellectual humility, are requisite. The 
virtue and the glory of industry cannot be presented 
too often to the j^oung. I know of no worldly good 
or human excellence that can be attained without 
it ; nor is there any inherited possession of name, 
or wealth, or position, that can be preserved in its 
extent and quality without active, systematic, judi- 
cious labor. 

It is not necessary to consider industry as habit- 
ual diligence in a pursuit, manual or intellectual ; 
but rather as a judicious arrangement of business 
and recreation, so as always to have time for the 
necessary duties of life. Mere diligence is not in- 
dustry in a good sense ; it is labor in a bad sense. 
Our time should be systematically appropriated to 
our employments, and each measure of time should 
be equal to the work or duty appointed for it. 
Moreover, each work or duty should be accom- 
plished in its appointed time ; and this can be 
secured only by a strong will. The power of will 
admits of education, culture, improvement, as much 
as any faculty of the mind or quality of character. 
15 



170 The High School System. 

A fickle, planless life cannot accomplish much. 
System in our plans, and firmness of will in their 
execution, will place us beyond the reach of ordi- 
nary disasters ; yet how often do young men go 
through a course of school studies without a plan, 
even for the moment, and enter upon life the slaves 
of chance, the victims of what they call fortune, 
while they might by industry, system and firmness 
of will, rise superior to circumstances, and extort 
a measure of success not unworthy of a noble 
ambition 1 

Idleness is a wasting disease, a consuming fire, 
a destroying demon ; in youth it is a calamity, in 
the vigor of manhood it is a disgrace and a sin, and 
in old age it can be honorably accepted only as the 
symbol of reflective leisure earned by a life of indus- 
try and virtue. Industry is a badge of honor, an 
introduction everywhere to the true nobility of the 
world, the security that each may take of the future 
for his own happiness and prosperity in it. 

Cardinal, personal virtues shrink and wither, or 
are blasted and die, in the company of idleness ; 
and, without firmness of will, the noblest principles 
and purest sentiments sometimes wear the livery 
of vice, and often they give encouragement to it. 
Good principles, good purposes, good ideas, are 
made fruitful by a strong resolution ; while with- 



The High School System. 171 

out it they are like bubbles of water, brilliant in 
the sun-light, but destined to collapse by the chang- 
ing, silent force of the medium in which they float. 
And can any life, not positively vicious and crimi- 
nal, be less desirable than that of the young man 
who quietly accepts whatever condition circum- 
stances assign to him ? I speak now of his moral 
and intellectual condition rather than of his social 
position among men. The latter is not in itself 
important, and only becomes so through the exhibi- 
tion of high qualities of mind and character. Social 
and political consideration we cannot demand as a 
right ; but we may acquire knowledge, develop 
qualities of character, give evidences of wisdom 
that entitle us to the respect of our fellows. 

It may be agreeable, but it is not absolutely essen- 
tial, for us to enjoy the public confidence, or even the 
public consideration ; though we can be happy our- 
selves only when we are conscious of not being totally 
unworthy. But no social or political concession or 
consideration is acceptable to a noble mind, that is 
grudgingly yielded or doubtingly bestowed ; and 
the lustre of great intellects is dimmed when they 
become subservient to claims that they despise. 

But can we acquire a knowledge of things, either 
divine or human, unless we cultivate our powers of 
observation ? Partial or inaccurate observation, 



172 The High School System. 

especially of natural things, is a great defect of 
character ; and in New England, where the aim of 
educators and of the public in matters of education 
is elevated, a remedy for this defect ought at once 
to be sought and applied. Our ideas are vague 
concerning many subjects of common sight and 
common observation. Is adult life, even among the 
educated classes, equal to a description of the com- 
mon animals, trees, fruits and flowers ? Who will 
paint with words the elm or the oak so that its 
species will be known while the name is withheld ? 
The introduction of drawing into the schools will 
improve the power of observation among the people, 
especially if the pupils are required to make nature 
their model. And this should always be done. 0, 
how is education belittled and the mind dwarfed by 
those teachers who keep their pupils' thoughts upon 
signs and definitions, when they ought to deal con- 
tinually with the facts, things and life of the world I 
It is no fable that a student of the higher mathe- 
matics, when his master, a practical engineer upon 
the Boston water-works, required his services, ex- 
claimed, " I had no idea that you had sines and 
tangents out of doors." With such, 

*' Nothing goes for sense or light 
That will not with old rules jump right ; 
As if rules were not in the schools 
Derived from truth, but truth from rules." 



The High School System. 173 

And Butler, in his satirical description of Sir 
Hudibras, ascribes to his hero more practical philos- 
ophy than he appears to have intended, and more, 
certainly, than is found in some modern systems of 
education : 

*' In mathematics he was greater 
Than Tycho Brahe or Erra Pater ; 
For he, by geometi-ic scale, 
Could take the size of pots of ale ; 
Resolve by sines and tangents straight. 
If bread or butter wanted weight ; 
And wisely tell what hour o' th' day 
The clock does strike, by algebra." 

Another prerequisite of wisdom is intellectual 
humility. Solomon says, " Before honor is humil- 
ity ; '' and humility is before wisdom, and even before 
learning. We ought not to be ashamed of involun- 
tary ignorance. Franklin, when asked how he came 
to know so much, replied, " By never being ashamed 
to ask a question.'' 

It is idle for any one to imagine that there is 
nothing more for him to learn. Indeed, such a the- 
ory is good evidence of defective education and 
limited attainments, if not of a defective mental and 
moral structure. 

Naturalists delight and instruct their pupils and 
auditors with the wonderful truths folded in the 



174 The High School System. 

flower, garnered in the plant, or imprisoned in the 
rock. Yet how much more there must be of God's 
wisdom in the humblest of the beings created in his 
image ! There are distinctions among men ; and 
out of these distinctions come the truth and the 
necessity that each may be both a teacher and a 
pupil of every other. No man, however learned he 
may be, does know or can know all that is known 
by his neighbor, though that neighbor be the hum- 
blest of shepherds or of fishermen. We are not 
independent of each other in anything. The earnest 
and faithful disciple of wisdom goes through life 
everywhere diffusing knowledge, and everywhere 
gathering it up. Over the great gateway of life is 
the inscription, '' None but learners enter here ; '' 
and along its paths and in its groves are tablets, on 
which is written, " None but learners sojourn here.'' 
He is a poor teacher who is not a learner, and he is 
but little of a learner who is not something of a 
teacher also. The best teachers are they who are 
pupils, and the best pupils are already teachers. 
Such was the real and avowed character of the great 
teachers of antiquity ; such is the best practice of 
modern continental Europe, and such is the require- 
ment of nature in all ages. He who does not learn 
cannot teach. Socrates professed to know only 
this, that he knew nothing. Plato was a disciple 



The High School System. 175 

of Socrates and Euclid ; a pupil in the school of 
Pythagoras ; and, as a traveller, under the disguise 
of a merchant and a seller of oil, he visited Egypt, 
and thus gained a knowledge of astronomy, and 
added something to his learning in other depart- 
ments. He numbered among his pupils Isocrates, 
Lycurgus, Aristotle, and Demosthenes ; and for eight 
years Alexander the Great was the pupil of Aristotle, 
while Demosthenes 

** Wielded at will that fierce Democratie, 
Shook the arsenal, and fulrained over Greece 
To Macedon, and Artaxerxes' throne." 

Thus we trace Demosthenes and Alexander, the 
master spirits in the struggle of Grecian independ- 
ence against Macedonian supremacy, through teach- 
ers and culture up to Socrates, the wanderer in 
the streets, and the disturber of the peace of 
Athens. 

It is stated that a distinguished modern phi- 
losopher often says, '' I don't know," when the 
curiosity or science of his pupils suggests ques- 
tions that he has not considered. If we respect 
and admire the wisdom of the wise, how ought 
we to be humbled, intellectually, by the reflec- 
tion that the unknown far exceeds the known, 
and that all become as little children when they 



176 The High School System. 

enter the temple of the sages I The ancients prized 
schools, teachers, and learning, because they were 
essential to wisdom ; and wisdom enabled them to 
live temperately, justly, and happily, in the present 
world ; while we prize schools, teachers, and learn- 
ing, because they contribute to what we call success 
in -life. The population of New England is com- 
posed of skilful artisans, intelligent merchants, 
shrewd or eloquent lawyers, industrious and intelli- 
gent farmers ; and to these results our system of 
education is too exclusively subservient. These 
results are not to be condemned, nor are the pro- 
cesses by which they are secured to be neglected. 
But our schools ought to do something always and 
for every one, for the full development of a character 
that is essential to artisans, merchants, lawyers, or 
farmers. Learning should not be prized merely as 
an aid to the daily work of life, — though this it prop- 
erly is and ever ought to be, — but for its expansive 
power in the mind and soul, by which we attain to a 
more perfect knowledge of things human and divine. 
There are many persons who accomplish satisfac- 
torily the tasks assigned them, but who do not 
always comprehend the processes of life, in its 
political, social, literary, scientific and industrial 
relations, by which the affairs of the world are 
guided. 



The High School System. 177 

Something of this is due, speaking of America, 
and especially of New England, to the universal 
desire to be engaged in active business. Young 
men destined for the farm or the shop, the counting- 
house or the store, leave home and school so early 
that their apprenticeship is ended long before their 
majority commences ; and they are thus prepared to 
enter early and vigorously upon the business of life. 
This course has its advantages, and it is also attended 
by many evils. Our youth have but little opportu- 
nity for observation, and a great deal of time for 
experience. They fall into mistakes that should 
have been observed, and consequently shunned. 
Moreover, this custom tends to make business men 
too exclusively and rigidly technical and profes- 
sional ; that is, in plain language, speaking relatively, 
they know too much of their own vocation, and too 
little of everything else. Business life follows so 
closely upon home life and school life, that the les- 
sons of the latter fail to exert an immediate and con- 
trolling influence, and it is often only in maturer 
years that the fruits of early training are seen. The 
connection is such that the boy or youth becomes 
a devotee of business before he is developed into 
complete manhood. This is movement, but not 
true progress ; activity, but not culture ; appropria- 
tion and accumulation, but not natural development. 



178 The High School System. 

This peculiarity is less prominent in England, and it 
is hardly known in the central states of Europe. It 
is to some extent a national, and especially is it a 
New England characteristic. It is a manifestation 
of the forward moving spirit of our people, and it is 
also at once a promise and the security for the 
ultimate supremacy of the American race and nation 
in the affairs of the world. In Athens young men 
attained their majority when they were sixteen ; 
but they usually prosecuted their studies after- 
wards, and Aristotle thought them unfit for mar- 
riage until they were thirty-seven years of age. 
This rule was observed by Aristotle in his own case ; 
but we are unable to say whether the rule was made 
before or after his marriage, which is a fact of much 
importance when we consider the wisdom of the 
precept, and the real principles and philosophy of its 
famous author. Moreover, regardless of one-half 
of creation, he has neither stated the age at which 
females are marriageable, nor given us that of his 
own wife. This neglect justly detracts from his 
authority ; and it will not be strange if young men 
and women view with distrust an opinion that is so 
manifestly partial and one-sided. If schools make 
merely learned people, in a narrow and technical 
sense, they are not doing their whole work. Such 
learning makes an efficient population, which is cer- 



The High School System. 179 

tainly desirable ; but it ought also to be a well- 
educated population in a broad, comprehensive, phi- 
losophic sense. By the force of nature and the devel- 
oping influences of society, including the church, the 
school, and the home, we ought first to be educated 
men and women, and then apply that education to 
the particular work we have in hand. By learning, 
in this connection, I do not mean the learning of 
Agassiz as a naturalist, the learning of Choate as a 
lawyer, or the learning of Everett as an orator ; but 
a more general and less minute culture, by which 
men are prepared to form an accurate judgment 
upon subjects that usually attract public attention. 

In the gardens of the wealthy, we often see peach- 
trees and pear-trees trained against brick or stone 
walls, to which they are attached by substantial 
thongs. These trees are carefully and systemati- 
cally trained, and they are trained so as to accom- 
plish certain results. They present a large surface, 
in proportion to the whole, to the sun and air ; in 
addition to the direct rays of the sun, they receive 
the reflected and accumulated heat of the walls to 
which they are fastened ; and they furnish ripe fruit 
much in advance of trees in the gardens and fields 
of the common farmers. Here art and nature, in 
brick walls, manure, the germinating power of the 
peach or pear, and rigid training and pruning, have 



180 The High School System. 

produced very good machines for the manufacture 
of fruit ; but for the full-grown, symmetrically devel- 
oped tree, or even for the choicest fruit in its season, 
we must look elsewhere. And who does not per- 
ceive, if all the trees of the gardens, fields, and for- 
ests, were treated in the same way, that the world 
would be deprived of a part of its beauty and glory, 
and that many species of trees would soon become 
extinct ? Who would not give back the luscious 
pear and peach to their native acritude, rather than 
subject the highest forms of vegetable life to such 
irreverence ? And, upon reflection, we shall say 
that such cruelty to inanimate life can be justified 
only as we justify the naturalist who dexterously 
and suddenly extracts a vital organ from a reptile, 
that he may observe the effect upon that form of 
animal existence. 

But the tree is not to be left in its native state. 
By culture its growth is so aided, that it is first 
and always a tree after its own kind, whether it be 
peach, pear, apple, elm, or oak ; at once ornamental 
and graceful, stately or majestic, according to the 
germinating principle which diffuses itself through 
each individual creation. "For the earth bringeth 
forth fruit of herself ; first the blade, then the ear, 
after that the full corn in the ear.'^ So in the human 
heart, mind, and soul, nature bringeth forth fruit of 



The High School System. 181 

herself; and it is the work of schools and teachers 
to aid nature in developing a full and attractive 
character, that shall yield fruit while all its powers 
are enlarged and strengthened, as the almond in the 
peach is not only more luscious in its fruit, but more 
graceful in its branches. Culture, in a broad sense, 
is the aid rendered to each individual creation in its 
work of self-improvement. It is not a noble and gen- 
erous culture which dwarfs the tree that early ripened 
or peculiarly flavored fruit may be obtained ; and it 
is not a noble and generous culture of the child 
which forces into unnatural activity certain faculties 
or powers that surprise us by their precocity, or 
excite wonder by the skill exhibited in their use. 
Rather let the child grow, expand, mature, accord- 
ing to the law of its own being, giving it only en 
couragement and example, which are the light and 
air of mental and moral life. I am not conscious 
that any one has given us a philosophical, logical 
system of development, that relates to the physical, 
intellectual, and moral character ; and to-day I state 
the educational want in this particular, but I do not 
attempt to supply it. Yet in nature such a system 
there must be, and only powers of observation are 
needed that we may avail ourselves of it. And in 
stating this want more particularly, I offer, as my 
first suggestion, the opinion, common among edu- 
16 



182 The High School System. 

cators, that, speaking generally and with reference 
to a system, we have no physical training whatever. 
In the days of our ancestors, one hundred or two 
hundred years ago, this training, as a part of a sys- 
tem of education, was not needed. We had no cities, 
and but few large towns. Agriculture and the ruder 
forms of mechanical labor were the chief occupations 
of the people. Populous cities, narrow streets, dark 
lanes, cellar habitations, crowded workshops, over- 
filled and over-heated factories, and the number of 
sedentary pursuits that tax and wear and destroy 
the physical powers, and undermine the moral and 
mental, were unknown. These are the attendants 
of our civilization, and they have brought a melan- 
choly train of evils with them. In the seventeenth 
century, men perished from exposure, from igno- 
rance of the laws of health, from the prevalence of 
malignant diseases that defied the science of the 
times ; and, as a consequence, the average length 
of human life was not greater than it now is. At 
present, there is but little exposure that is followed 
by fatal results ; malignant diseases are deprived of 
many of their terrors ; rules of living, founded upon 
scientific principles, are accessible to all ; and yet 
we daily meet young men and women who are man- 
ifestly unequal to the lot that is before them. In 
Bome cases, the sin of the parent is visited upon the 



The High School System. 183 

children, and the measure of life meted out to them 
is limited and insufficient. In other cases, the indi- 
viduals, first yielding in their own persons, are the 
victims of positive vice, or of some of the evils 
stated. Civilization is not an unmixed good ; and 
we cannot offer to the city or the factory any ade- 
quate compensation for the loss of pure water, pure 
air, and the healthful exercise of body, which may be 
enjoyed in the country villages and agricultural dis- 
tricts of the state. 

Yet even in cities and large towns the culture of 
home and school should diminish these evils ; and it 
is a pleasure to believe that our system of domestic 
and public education is doing something at the 
present moment in behalf of the too much neglected 
body ; but nowhere, either in city or country, do 
we observe the evidences of juvenile health and 
strength that a friend of the race would desire to 
see. And it is, I fear, specially true of schools, and 
to some extent it is true of teachers, as a class, that 
too little attention is given to those exercises and 
habits which secure good health. There are many 
causes which tend to lower the average health and 
strength of our people. 1st. The practice of send- 
ing children to school at the tender age of five, four, 
or even three years. Every school necessarily im- 
poses some restraint upon the pupils ; and I assume 



184 The High School System. 

that no child under five years of age should be sub- 
ject to such restraints. But the education of the 
child is not, therefore, to be neglected. Parents, 
brothers and sisters, may all do something for the 
young inquirer ; but he should never have lessons 
imposed, nor be subject to the rules of a school of 
any description. The moment of his admission 
must be determined by circumstances, and the force 
of the circumstances must be judged of by parents. 
If a child is blessed with kind, considerate, intel- 
ligent parents, the first eight years of his life can 
be spent nowhere else as profitably as at home. 
The true mother is the model teacher. No other 
person can ever acquire the control over her off- 
spring that is her own rightful possession. When 
she neglects the trust confided to her, she is guilty 
of a serious wrong ; and when she transfers it to 
another, she takes upon herself a greater responsi- 
bility than she yields up. The instinctive judgment 
of the world cannot be an erroneous judgment. The 
mother has always, to a great extent, been made 
responsible for the child ; and the honor of his vir- 
tues or the disgrace of his crimes has been traced 
through him to her. 

2dly. Some portion of every school-day should be 
systematically and strictly devoted to recreation, 
physical exercise and manual labor ; and the hours 



The High School System. 185 

given to study ought to be defined and limited. 
Some persons say, "Let a child study as much as 
he will, there is time enough to play." This may be 
generally true, but it is not universally so. I can- 
not but think that the practice of assigniug lessons 
and giving the pupil the free use of the four-and- 
twenty hours is a bad practice. Would it not be bet- 
ter to give to each pupil certain hours for study ? — 
assign him lessons, by topics if possible, allow him 
to do what he can in the allotted time, and then 
prohibit the appropriation of an additional minute ? 
Why should a dull scholar, or one who has but little 
taste or talent for a given study, be required to plod 
twelve, sixteen, or eighteen hours at unwelcome 
tasks, while another more favored disposes of his 
work in six ? Why should a pupil, who is laboring 
under some mental or physical debility, be required 
to apply his mind unceasingly when he most needs 
rest and recreation ? Why should the pages of a 
spelling-book, grammar, geography, or arithmetic, 
be the measure of each pupil's capacity ? Lessons 
are to be assigned, not necessarily to be mastered 
by the pupil, though they should have just reference 
to his capacity, but as the subject of his studies for 
a given period of time. The pupil should be respons- 
ible for nothing but the proper use of that time. 
Two advantages might result from this practice. 
16* 



186 The High School System. 

First, the pupil would acquire the habit of perform- 
ing the greatest amount of labor possible in the 
given time ; and, secondly, he would naturally 
throw off all care for books and school when the 
hour for relaxation arrived. If particular studies 
are assigned to specified hours, the pupil must 
master his thoughts, and give them the required 
direction. This in itself is a great achievement. I 
put it, in practical value, before any of the studies 
that are taught and learned in the schools. The 
danger to which pupils are often exposed, in this 
connection, is quite apparent. A lesson is assigned 
for a succeeding day. The attention is not immedi- 
ately fixed upon it. One hour passes, and then an- 
other. Nothing is accomplished, yet the pupil is 
continually oppressed by the consciousness of duty 
unperformed, and the result is, that he neither does 
what he ought to do, nor does anything else. 
Would it not be better to measure and assign his 
time, and then require him to abandon all thought 
of the matter ? This practice might give our people 
the faculty and the habit of throwing off cares and 
occupations, when they leave the scenes of them. 
It is a just criticism upon American character, that 
our business men carry their occupations with them 
wherever they go. I should put high up among the 
elements of worldly success the ability to give assid- 



The High School System. 187 

uously, studiously and devotedly, the necessary time 
to a subject of business, and then to throw off all 
thought of it. There can be no peace of mind for 
the business man who does not possess this quality ; 
and I think it will contribute essentially to a long 
life and a quiet old age. No wise man ever attempts 
more than one thing at a time ; and the man who 
attempts to do more than one thing at a time has 
no security that he can do anything well. The 
statements of biography and history, that Napoleon 
was accustomed to do several things at once, rest 
upon a misconception of the operations of the human 
mind. His facility for the direction and transaction 
of business depended upon the quality I am now 
considering. He had the faculty of giving his atten- 
tion, undivided and strongly fixed, to a subject for 
an hour, half-hour, minute, half-minute, or second, 
and then of dismissing the matter altogether, and 
directing his thoughts, without loss of time, to what- 
ever next might be presented. One thing at a time 
is a law which no finite power can violate ; and abil- 
ity in execution depends upon the ability to concen- 
trate all the powers of the mind, at a given moment, 
upon the assigned topic, and then to change, without 
friction or loss of time, to something else. 

This institution is a high school, and the ques- 
tion is now agitated, especially in the State of Con- 



188* The High School System. 

necticut, '^How can the advantages of a high-school 
education be best secured ? '^ This question I pro- 
pose to consider. And, first, the high school must 
be a public school. A public school I understand to 
be a school established by the public, — supported 
chiefly or entirely by the public, controlled by the 
public, and accessible to the public upon terms of 
equality, without special charge for tuition. 

Private schools may be established and controlled 
by an individual, or by an association of individuals, 
who have no corporate rights under the government, 
but receive pupils upon terms agreed upon, subject 
to the ordinary laws of the land. 

Private schools may be founded also by one or 
more persons, and by them endowed with funds, for 
their partial or entire support. In such cases, the 
founder, through the money given, has the right to 
prescribe the rules by which the school shall be con- 
trolled, and also to provide for the appointment of 
its managers or trustees through all time. In such 
cases, corporate powers are usually granted by the 
government for the management of the business. But 
the chief rights of such an institution are derived 
from the founder, and the facilities for their easy ex- 
ercise and quiet enjoyment are derived from the state. 

Such schools are sometimes, upon a superficial 
view, supposed to be public, because they receive 



The High School System. 189 

pupils upon terms of equality, and no rule of exclu- 
sion exists which does not apply to all. And espe- 
cially has it been assumed that a free school thus 
founded, as the Norwich Free Academy, which 
makes no charges for tuition, and is open to all the 
inhabitants of the city, is therefore a public school. 
These institutions are public in their use, but not in 
their foundation or control, and are therefore not 
public schools. The character of a school, as of 
any eleemosynary institution, is derived from the 
will of the founder ; and when the beneficial founder 
is an individual, or a number of individuals less than 
the whole political organization of which the indi- 
viduals are a part, the institution is private, what- 
ever the rules for its enjoyment may be. To say 
that a school is a public school because it receives 
pupils free of charge for tuition, or because it re- 
ceives them upon conditions that are applied alike 
to all, is to deny that there are any private schools, 
for all come within the definition thus laid down. 

Nor is there any good reasoning in the statement 
that a school is public because it receives pupils 
from a large extent of country. Dartmouth College 
is a private school, though its pupils come from all 
the land or all the world ; while the Boston Latin 
School is a public school, though it receives those 
pupils only whose homes are within the limits of the 



190 The High School System. 

city. The first is a private school, because it was 
founded by President Wheelock, and has been con- 
trolled by him and his successors, holding and gov- 
erning and enjoying through him, from the first 
until now ; while the Boston Latin School is a pub- 
lic school, because it was established by the city of 
Boston, through the votes of its inhabitants, under 
the laws of the state, and is at all times subject, in 
its government and existence, to the popular will 
which created it. When we speak of the public we 
do not necessarily mean the world, nor the nation, nor 
even the state ; but the word public, in a legal sense, 
may stand for any legal political organization, ter- 
ritorially defined, and intrusted in any degree with 
the administration of its own affairs. And the pub- 
lic character of a particular school, as the Boston 
Latin School, for example, may be determined by a 
process of reasoning quite independent of that 
already presented. The State of Massachusetts, a 
complete sovereignty in itself, has provided by her 
constitution and laws, which are the expressed judg- 
ment of her people, for the establishment of a system 
of public schools, through the agency and action of 
the respective cities and towns of the common- 
wealth. These towns and cities, under the laws, 
set up the schools ; and of course each school par- 
takes of the public character which the action of the 



The High School System. " 191 

state, followed by the corporate public action of the 
city or town, has given to it. Thus it is seen that 
our public schools answer to the requirement already 
stated. They are established by the public, sup- 
ported chiefly or entirely by the public, controlled 
by the public, and accessible to the public upon 
terms of equality, without special charge for tuition. 
Nor is the public character of a school changed by 
the fact that private citizens may have contributed 
to its maintenance, if such contributors do not 
assume to stand in the relation of founders. It is 
well understood that the beneficial founder of a 
school is he who makes the first gift or bequest to 
it, and the legal founder is the government which 
grants a charter, or in any way confers upon it a 
corporate existence. If a town establish a high 
school, as in Bernardston to-day, and accept a 
gift or bequest, the character of the school is not 
changed thereby. Mr. Powers did not attempt to 
establish a new school. lie gave the income of ten 
thousand dollars for the aid of schools then existing, 
and for the aid of a school whose existence was 
alread}'- contemplated by the laws of the state. No 
change has been wrought in your institutions ; 
they are still public, — your generous testator has 
only contributed to their support. And, in consider- 
ing yet further the question, " How can the ad van- 



192 The High School System. 

tages of a high-school education be best secured ?'' 
I shall proceed to compare, with what brevity I can 
command, the public high school with the free high 
school or academy upon a private foundation. My 
reasoning is general, and the argument does not 
apply to all the circumstances of society. It is not 
everywhere possible to establish a public high 
school. In some cases the population may not be 
sufficient, in others there may not be adequate 
wealth, and in others there may not be an elevated 
public sentiment equal to the emergency. In such 
circumstances, those who desire education must ob- 
tain it in the best manner possible ; and academies, 
whether free or not, and private schools, whether 
endowed or not, should be thankfully accepted and 
encouraged. Nor will high schools meet all the 
wants of society. There must always be a place 
for classical schools, scientific schools, professional 
schools, which, in their respective courses of study, 
either anticipate or follow, in the career of the stu- 
dent, his four years of college life. With these con- 
ditions and limitations stated, the point I seek to 
establish is that a public high school can do the 
work usually done in such institutions more faith- 
fully, thoroughly, and economically, than it can be 
done anywhere else. 

1st. The supervision of the public school is more 



The High School System. 193 

responsible, and consequently more perfect. In pri- 
vate schools, academies and free high schools -which 
are endowed, there is a board of trustees, who per- 
petuate, as a corporation, their own existence. Each 
member is elected for life, and he is not only not 
responsible to the public, but he is not even respons- 
ible, except in extraordinary cases, to his associates. 
Responsibility is, in all governments, the security 
taken for fidelity. The election of representatives, 
in the state or national legislature, for life, would be 
esteemed a great and dangerous innovation. 

It may be said that boards of trustees are usually 
better qualified to manage a school than the com- 
mittees elected by the respective cities and towns. 
Judged as individuals, this is probably true ; though 
upon this point I prefer to admit a claim rather than 
to express an opinion. But positively incompetent 
school committees are the exception in Massachu- 
setts ; usually the people make the selection from 
their best men. But in the public school you get 
the immediate, direct supervision of the public. Not 
merely in the election of committees, but in a daily 
interest and vigilance whose results are freely dis- 
closed to the superintending committee, as every 
inhabitant feels that his contribution, as a tax-payer, 
gives him the right to judge the character of the 
Bchool, and makes it his duty to report its defects to 
17 



104 The High School System. 

those charged with its management. The real de- 
fects of a school, especially of a high school, will be 
first discovered by pupils ; and they are likely to 
report these defects to their parents. In the case 
of the endowed private school, the parent feels that 
he buys whatever the trustees have to sell, or takes 
as a gift whatever they have to offer free ; and he 
does not, logically nor as a matter of fact, infer from 
either of these relations his right to participate 
in the government of the school. In one case you 
have the observation, the judgment, the supervision, 
of the whole community ; in the other case you have 
the learning and judgment of five, seven, ten, or 
twelve men. 

2dly. The faithfulness of the teacher is very much 
dependent upon the supervision to which he is sub- 
ject. This is only saying that the teacher is human. 
In the public school there is no motive which can 
influence a reasonable man that would lead him to 
swerve in the least from his fidelity to the interest 
of the school as a whole. No partiality to a partic- 
ular individual, no desire to promulgate a special 
idea, can ever stand in the place of that public sup- 
port which is best secured by a just performance of 
his duties. In the private school, with a self-perpet- 
uating board of trustees, the temptation is strong to 
make the organization subservient to some opinion 



The High School System. 195 

in politics, religion, or social life. This may not 
always be done ; but in many cases it has been done, 
and there is no reason to expect different things in 
the future. I concur, then, unreservedly in the judg- 
ment which has placed this institution, in all its 
interests and in all its duties, under the control of 
the inhabitants of Bernardston. When they who 
live in its light and enjoy its benefits cease to re- 
spect it, when they to whom it is specially dedicated 
cease to love and cherish it, it will no longer be 
entitled to the favorable consideration of a more 
extended public sentiment. As all trustworthy 
national patriotism must be built on love for state, 
town, and home, so every school ought to esteem its 
power for usefulness in its own neighborhood its 
chief means of good. 

It will naturally be inferred, from the remarks 
made upon the singleness of purpose and fidelity of 
the public school to the cause of education, that the 
instruction given in it is more thorough than is usu- 
ally given in the private school. But, in examining 
yet further the claim of the public school to superior 
thoroughness, I must assume that it enjoys the ad- 
vantages of comfortable rooms, adequate apparatus 
and competent teachers. And this assumption ought 
to be supported by the facts. There is no good rea- 
son why any town in Massachusetts should be negli- 



196 The High School System. 

gent or parsimonious in these particulars. True 
economy requires liberal appropriations. With these 
appropriations, the best teachers, even from private 
schools and academies, can be secured, and all the 
aids and encouragements to liberal culture can be 
provided. Is it possible that any of the means of a 
common-school education are necessarily denied to a 
million and a quarter of industrious people, who 
already possess an aggregate capital of seven or 
eight hundred millions of dollars ? But the charac- 
ter of a high school must always depend materially 
upon the previous training of the pupils, and the 
qualifications required for admission. When the 
high school is a public school, the studies of the pri- 
mary and grammar or district schools are arranged 
with regard to the system as a system. There is no 
inducement to admit a pupil for the sake of the tui- 
tion fees, or for the purpose of adding to the number 
of scholars. The applicant is judged by his merits 
as a scholar ; and where there is a wise public senti- 
ment, the committee will be sustained in the execu- 
tion of just rules. 

In the public high school we avoid a difficulty that 
is almost universal in academies and private schools 
— the presence of pupils whose attainments are so 
various that by a proper classification they would be 
assigned to two, if not to three grades, where the 



The High School System. 197 

graded system exists. The vigilance, industry and 
fidelity of teachers, cannot overcome this evil. The 
instruction given is inevitably less systematic and 
thorough. The character which the high school, 
whether public or private, presents, is not its own 
character merely ; it reflects the qualities and pecu- 
liarities of the schools below. It follows, then, that 
the attention of the public should be as much direct- 
ed to the primary and grammar or district schools 
as to the high school itself. Of course, it ought not 
to be assumed that the existence of a high school 
will warrant any abatement of appropriations for the 
lower grades ; indeed, the interest and resources of 
these schools ought continually to increase. 

Nor can it be assumed that your contributions to 
the cause of education will be diminished by the 
bequest of your generous testator. He did not seek 
to lessen your burdens, but to add to the means of 
education among you. 

There is also an inherent power of discipline in the 
public schools, where they are graded and a system 
of examinations exists, that is not found elsewhere. 
Neither the pupil nor the parent is viewed by the 
teacher in the light of a patron ; hence, he seeks 
only to so conduct his school as to meet the 
public requirement. Moreover, as admission to a 
high school can be secured by merit only, the results 
17* 



198 The High School System. 

of the preliminary training must have been such as 
to create a reasonable presumption in favor of the 
applicant, mentally and morally. Hence, the public 
schools are filled by youth who are there as the re- 
ward of individual, personal merit. Practically, the 
motive by which the pupils are animated has much 
to do with their success. If they are moved by a 
love for learning, they attain the object of their de- 
sires even without the aid of teachers ; but where 
they are aided and encouraged by faithful teachers, 
the school is soon under the control of a public sen- 
timent which secures the end in view. 

This public sentiment is not as easily built up in a 
private school ; for, in the nature of things, some 
pupils will find their way there who are not true dis- 
ciples of learning ; and such persons are obstacles 
to general progress, while they advance but little 
themselves. 

And, gentlemen trustees and citizens of Bernards- 
ton, may I not personally and especially invite you 
to consider the importance of a fixed standard of 
admission and a careful examination of candidates ? 
This course is essential to the improvement of your 
district and village schools. It is essential to the 
true prosperity of this seminary, and it is also essen- 
tial to the intellectual advancement of the people 
within your influence. You expect pupils from the 



The High School System. 199 

neighboring towns. Your object is not pecuniary 
profit, but the education of the people. If your re- 
quirements are positive, though it may not be difii- 
cult to meet them in the beginning, every town that 
depends upon this institution for better learning 
than it can furnish at home will be compelled to 
maintain schools of a high order. On the other hand, 
negligence in this particular will not onlj'- degrade 
the school under your care here, but the schools in 
this town and the cause of education in the vicinity 
will be unfavorably affected. Nor let the objection 
that a rigid standard of qualifications will exclude 
many pupils, and diminish the attendance upon the 
school, have great weight ; for you perform but half 
your duty when you provide the means of a good 
education for your own students. You are also, 
through the power inherent in this authority, to do 
something to elevate the standard of learning in 
other schools, and in the country around. What 
harm if this school be small, while by its influence 
other schools are made better, and thus every boy 
and girl in the vicinity has richer means of education 
than could otherwise have been secured .'' Thus will 
tens, and hundreds, and thousands, of successive 
generations, have cause to bless this school, though 
they may never have sat under its teachers, or been 
within its walls. 



200 The High School System. 

In a system of public schools, everything may be 
had at its prime cost. There need be no waste of 
money, or of the time or power of teachers. As the 
public system must everywhere exist, it is a matter of 
economy to bring all the children under its influence. 
The private system never can educate all ; therefore 
the public system cannot be abandoned, unless we 
consent to give up a part of the population to igno- 
rance. It may, then, be said that the private schools, 
essential in many cases, ought to give way when- 
ever the public schools are prepared to do the work ; 
and when the public schools are so prepared, the 
existence of private schools adds their own cost to 
the necessary cost of popular education. 

But we are not to encourage parsimony in educa- 
tion ; for parsimony in this department is not true 
economy. It is true economy for the state and for a 
town to set up and maintain good schools as 
cheaply as they can be had, yet at any necessary 
cost, so only that they be good. Massachusetts is 
prosperous and wealthy to-day, respected in evil re- 
port as well as in good, because, faithful to principle 
and persistent in courage, she has for more than two 
hundred years provided for the education of her 
children ; and now the re-flowing tide of her wealth 
from seaboard and cities will bear on its wave to 
these quiet valleys and pleasant hill-sides the lovers 



The High School System. 201 

of agriculture, friends of art, students of science, and 
such as worship rural scenes and indulge in rural 
sports ; but the favored and first-sought spots will 
be those where learning has already chosen her seat, 
and offers to manhood and age the culture and 
society which learning only can give, and to child- 
hood and youth, over and above the training of the 
best schools, healthful moral influences, and ele- 
ments of physical growth and vigor, which ever dis- 
tinguish life in the country and among the moun- 
tains from life in the city or on the plain. And 
over a broader field and upon a larger sphere shall 
the benignant influence of this system of public in- 
struction be felt. In the affairs of this great repub- 
lic, the power of a state is not to be measured by the 
number of its votes in Congress. Public opinion is 
mightier than Congress ; and they who wield or con- 
trol that do, in reality, bear rule. Power in the 
world, upon a large view, and in the light of history, 
has not been confided to the majorities of men. 
Greece, unimportant in extent of territory, a penin- 
sula and archipelago in the sea, led the way in the 
civilization of the west, and, through her eloquence, 
poetry, history and art, became the model of mod- 
ern culture. Kome, a single city in Italy, that 
stretches itself into the sea as though it would gaze 
upon three continents, subjugated to her sway the 



202 The High School System. 

savage and civilized world, and impressed her arms 
and jurisprudence upon all succeeding times ; then 
Venice, without a single foot of solid land, guarded 
inviolate the treasure of her sovereignty for thirteen 
hundred years against the armies of the East and 
the West ; while, in our own time, England, unim- 
portant in the extent of her insular territory, has 
been able, by the intelligence and enterprise of her 
people, to make herself mistress of the seas, arbiter 
of the fortunes of Europe, and the ruler of a hundred 
millions of people in Asia. 

These things have happened in obedience to a law 
which knows no change. Power in America is with 
those who can bring the greatest intellectual and 
moral force to bear upon a given point. And Mas- 
sachusetts, limited in the extent of her territory, 
without salubrity of climate, fertility of soil, or wealth 
of mines, will have influence, through her people at 
home and her people abroad, proportionate to her 
fidelity to the cause of universal public education. 



NORMAL SCHOOL TRAINING. 

[An Address delivered at the Dedication of the State Normal School, at Salem.] 

The human race may be divided into two classes. 
One has no ideal of a future different from the 
present ; or, if it is not always satisfied with this 
view, it has yet had no clear conception of a higher 
existence. 

The other class is conscious of the power of prog- 
ress, is making continual advances, and has an ideal 
of a future such as, in its judgment, the present 
ought to be. Both of these classes have institu- 
tions ; for institutions are not the product of civiliza- 
tion, as they exist wherever our social nature is 
developed. Man is also a dependent being, and he 
therefore seeks the company, counsel and support 
of his fellows. From the right of numbers to act 
comes the necessity of agreement, or at least so 
much concurrence in what is to be done as to secure 
the object sought. The will of numbers can only be 
expressed through agencies ; and these, however 
simple, are indeed institutions — the evidence of civ- 
ilization, rather than its product. They are always 

(203) 



204 Normal School Training. 

the sign, symbol, or language, by which the living 
man expresses the purpose of his life. Therefore, 
institutions differ, as the purposes of men vary. 

The savage and the man of culture do not seek 
the same end ; hence they will not employ the same 
means. 

The institutions of the savage are those of the 
family, clan, or tribe, to which he belongs. There 
the child is instructed in the art of dress, in manners 
and language, in the rude customs of agriculture, 
the chase, and war. This with him is life, and the 
history of one generation is often the history of 
many generations. Their ideal corresponds with 
their actual life ; and, as a necessary result, there is 
little or no progress. 

But the other class establishes institutions which 
indicate the existence of new relations, and exact 
the performance of new duties. As man is a social 
being, he necessarily creates institutions of govern- 
ment and education corresponding to the sphere in 
which he is to act. If a nation desires to educate 
only a part of its people, its institutions are naturally 
exclusive ; but wherever the idea of universal educa- 
tion has been received, the institutions of the coun- 
try look to that end. 

When Massachusetts was settled there were no 
truly popular institutions in the world, for there was 



Normal School Training. 205 

really no belief in popular rights. And why should 
those be encouraged to think who have no right to 
act ? The principle that every man is to take a part 
in the affairs of the community or state to which 
he belongs seems to be the foundation of the doc- 
trine that every man should be educated to think for 
himself. Free schools and general education are the 
natural results of the principles of human equality, 
which distinguish the people and political systems 
of America. 

The purposes of a people are changeable and 
changing, but institutions are inflexible ; therefore 
these latter often outlast the ideas in which they 
originated, or the ideas may be acting in other 
bodies or forms. Institutions are the visible forms 
of ideas, but they are useful only while those ideas 
are living in the minds of men. If an institution 
is suffered to remain after the idea has passed 
away, it embarrasses rather than aids an advanc- 
ing people. Such are monastic establishments in 
Protestant countries ; such is the Church of Eng- 
land, as an institution of religion and government, to 
all classes of dissenters ; such are many seminaries 
of learning in Europe, and some in America. 

Massachusetts has had one living idea, from the 
first, — that general intelligence is necessary to pop- 
ular virtue and liberty. This idea she has expressed 
18 



206 Normal School Training. 

in various ways ; the end it promises she has 
sought by various means. In obedience to this 
idea, she has established colleges, common schools, 
grammar schools, academies, and at last the Normal 
School. 

The institution only of the Normal School is new ; 
the idea is old. The Normal system is but a better 
expression of an idea partially concealed, but never- 
theless to be found in the college, grammar school 
and academy of our fathers. Nor have we accepted 
the institution so readily from a knowledge of its 
results in other countries, as from its manifest fitness 
to meet a want here. It is not, then, our fortune to 
inaugurate a new idea, but only to clothe an old one 
again, so that it may more efficiently advance popu- 
lar liberty, intelligence and virtue. And this is our 
duty to-day. 

The proprieties of this occasion would have been 
better observed, had his excellency. Governor Wash- 
burn, found it convenient to deliver the address, 
which, at a late moment, has been assigned to me. 
But we are all in some degree aware of the nature 
and extent of his public duties, and can, therefore, 
appreciate the necessity which demands relief from 
some of them. 

Massachusetts has founded four Normal Schools, 
and at the close of the present century she may not 



Normal School Training. 207 

have established as many more, for she now satisfies 
the just demands of every section of her territory, 
and presents the benefits of this system of instruc- 
tion to all her inhabitants. The building we here 
set apart, and the school we now inaugurate to the 
service of learning, are to be regarded as the com- 
pletion of the original plan of the state, and any 
future extension will depend upon the success of the 
Normal system as it shall appear in other years to 
other generations of men. But we have great faith 
that the Normal system, in itself and in its connec- 
tions, will realize the cherished idea of our whole 
history ; and if so, it will be extended until every 
school is supplied with a Normal teacher. 

This, then, is an occasion of general interest ; but 
to the city of Salem, and the county of Essex, it is 
specially important. Similar institutions have been 
long established in other parts of the state ; but 
some compensation is now to be made to you, in the 
experience and improvements of the last fifteen 
years. Intelligent labor sheds light upon the path 
of the laborer, and, though the direct benefits of 
this system have not been here enjoyed, many re- 
sulting advantages from the experience of similar 
institutions in other places will now inure to you. 

The city of Salem, with wise forecast, anticipated 
these advantages, and generously contributed a sum 



208 Normal School Training. 

larger even than that appropriated by the state 
itself. This bounty determined the location of the 
school, but determined it fortunately for all con- 
cerned. 

Salem is one of the central points of the state ; 
and in this respect no other town in the vicinity, 
however well situated, is a competitor. Pupils 
may reside at their homes in Newburyport, Lynn, 
Lawrence, Haverhill, Gloucester and Lowell, or 
at any intermediate place, and enjoy the benefit 
of daily instruction within these walls. This is a 
great privilege for parents and pupils ; and it could 
not have been so well secured at any other point. 
Here, also, pupils and teachers may avail themselves 
of the libraries, literary institutions and cabinets of 
this ancient and prosperous town. These are no 
common advantages. 

We are wiser and better for the presence of great 
numbers of books, though we may never know what 
they contain. We see how much perseverance and 
labor have accomplished, and are sensible that what 
has been may be equalled if not excelled. In great 
libraries, we realize how the works of the ambitious 
are neglected, and their names forgotten, while we 
cannot fail to be impressed with the value of the 
truth, that the only labor which brings a certain 
reward is that performed under a sense of duty. 



Normal School Training. 209 



Salem is itself the intelligent and refined centre 
of an intelligent and prosperous population ; and we 
may venture so far, in just eulogy, as to attribute to 
it the united advantages of city and country, with- 
out a large share of the privations of the one, or the 
vices of the other. Of the four Normal Schools, 
this is, unquestionably, the most fortunate in its 
position and surroundings. We, therefore, ask for 
the concurrence of the public in the judgment which 
has established it in this city. If it shall be the 
fortune of the government to assemble a body of 
instructors qualified for their stations, there will 
then remain no reason why these accommodations 
and advantages should not be fully enjoyed. 

The Normal School differs from all other semina- 
ries of learning, and only because it is an auxiliary 
to the common schools can it be deemed their in- 
ferior in importance. The academy and college take 
young men from the district and high schools, and 
furnish them with additional aids for the business of 
life ; but the Normal School is truly the helper of 
the common schools. It receives its pupils from 
them, fits these pupils for teachers, and sends them 
back to superintend where a few months before they 
were scholars. The Normal Schools are sustained 
by the common schools ; and these latter, in return, 
draw their best nutriment from the former. This 
18* 



210 Normal School Training. 

institution stands with the common school ; it is 
as truly popular, as really democratic in a just 
sense, and its claim for support rests upon the same 
foundation. 

In Massachusetts we have abandoned the idea, 
never, I think, general, that instruction in the art of 
teaching is unnecessary. 

The Normal School is, with us, a necessity ; for it 
furnishes that tuition which neither the common 
school, academy, nor college can. These institu- 
tions were once better adapted to this service than 
now. There has been a continual increase of aca- 
demic studies, until it has become necessary to estab- 
lish institutions for special purposes ; and of these 
the Normal School is one. Its object is definite. 
The true Normal School instructs only in the art of 
teaching ; and, in this respect, it must be confessed 
we have failed, sadly failed, to realize the ideal of 
the system. It is not a substitute for the common 
school, academy, or college, though many pupils, 
and in some degree the public, have been inclined 
thus to treat it. There should be no instruction in 
the departments of learning, high or low, except 
what is incidental to the main business of the insti- 
tution ; yet some have gone so far in the wrong 
course as to suggest that not only the common 
branches should be studied, but that tuition should 



Normal School Training. 211 

be given in the languages and the higher mathemat- 
ics. A little reflection will satisfy us how great a 
departure this would be from the just idea of the 
Normal School. Yet circumstances, rather than 
public sentiment, have compelled the government to 
depart in practice, though never in theory, from the 
true system. 

It so happens that much time is occupied in in- 
struction in those branches which ought to be thor- 
oughly mastered by the pupil before he enters the 
Normal School, — that is, before he begins to acquire 
the art of teaching what he has not himself learned. 

Such is the state of our schools that we are obliged 
to accept as pupils those who are not qualified, in a 
literary point of view, for the post of teachers. By 
sending better teachers into the public schools, you 
will effectually aid in the removal of this difficulty. 
The Normal School is, then, no substitute for the high 
school, academy, or college. Nor do we ask for any 
sympathy or aid which properly belongs to those 
institutions. He is no friend of education, in its 
proper signification, who patronizes some one insti- 
tution, and neglects all others. We have no semina- 
ries of learning which can be considered useless, and 
he only is a true friend who aids and encourages any 
and all as he has opportunity. What is popularly 
known as learning is to be acquired in the common 



212 Normal School Training. 

school, high school, academy and college, as here- 
tofore. The Normal School does not profess to give 
instruction in reading and arithmetic, but to teach 
the art of teaching reading and arithmetic. So of 
all the elementary branches. But, as the art of 
teaching a subject cannot be acquired without at the 
same time acquiring a better knowledge of the sub- 
ject itself, the pupil will always leave the Normal 
School better grounded than ever before in the ele- 
ments and principles of learning. It is not, how- 
ever, to be expected that complete success will be 
realized here more than elsewhere ; yet it is well to 
elevate the standard of admission, from time to time, 
so that a larger part of the exercises may be devoted 
to the main purpose of the institution. The strug- 
gle should be perpetual and in the right direction. 
First, elevate your common schools so that the edu- 
cation there may be a sufficient basis for a course of 
training here. If the Normal School and the public 
schools shall each and all do their duty, candidates 
for admission will be so well qualified in the branches 
required, that the art of teaching will be the only art 
taught here. When this is the case, the time of 
attendance will be diminished, and a much larger 
number of persons may be annually qualified for the 
station of teachers. 

Next, let the committees and others interested in 



Normal School Training. 213 

education make special efforts to fill the chairs of 
your hall with young women of promise, who are 
likely to devote themselves to the profession. It is, 
however, impossible for human wisdom to guard 
against one fate that happens to all, or nearly all, 
the young women who are graduated at our Normal 
Schools. But this remark is not made publicly, lest 
some anxious ones avail themselves of your bounty 
as a means to an end not contemplated by the state. 

The house you have erected is not so much dedi- 
cated to the school as to the public ; the institution 
here set up is not so much for the benefit of the 
young women who may become pupils, as for the 
benefit of the public which they represent. The 
appeal is, therefore, to the public to furnish such 
pupils, in number and character, that this institution 
may soon and successfully enter upon the work for 
which it is properly designed. 

But the character and value of this school depend 
on the quality of its teachers more than on all things 
else. They should be thoroughly instructed, not 
only in the branches taught, but in the art of teach- 
ing them. 

The teacher ought to have attained much that the 
pupil is yet to learn ; if he has not, he cannot utter 
words of encouragement, nor estimate the chances 
of success. It is not enough to know what is cod- 



214 Normal School Training. 

tained in the text-book ; the pupil should know that, 
at least ; the teacher should know a great deal more. 
A person is not qualified for the office of teacher 
when he has mastered a book ; and has, in fact, no 
right to instruct others until he has mastered the 
subject. 

Text-books help us a little on the road of learn- 
ing ; but, by and by, whatever our pursuit or pro- 
fession, we leave them behind, or else content our- 
selves with a subordinate position. Practical men 
have made book-farmers the subject of ridicule ; and 
there is some propriety in this ; for he is not a master 
in his profession who has not got, as a general thing, 
out of and beyond the books which treat of it. 

Books are necessary in the school-room ; but the 
good teacher has little use for them in his own 
hands, or as aids in his own proper work. He 
should be instructed in his subject, aside from and 
above the arbitrary rules of authors ; and he will be, 
if he is himself inspired with a love of learning. 
Inspired with a love of learning 1 Whoever is, is 
sure of success ; and whoever is not, has the best 
possible security for the failure of his plans. There 
cannot be a good school where the love of learning 
in teacher and pupil is wanting ; and there cannot 
be a bad one where this spirit has control. As the 
master, so is the disciple ; as the teacher, so is the 



Normal School Training. 215 

pupil ; for the spirit of the teacher will be commu- 
nicated to the scholars. There must also be habits 
of industry and system in study. We have multi- 
tudes of scholars who study occasionally, and study 
hard ; but we need a race of students who will 
devote themselves habitually, and with love, to liter- 
ature and science. 

On the teachers, then, is the chief responsibility, 
whether the young women who go out from this 
institution are well qualified for their profession or 
not. The study of technicalities is drudgery of the 
worst sort to the mere pupil ; but the scholar looks 
upon it as a preparation for a wide and noble exer- 
cise of his intellectual powers — as a key to unlock 
the mysteries of learning. It is the business of the 
teacher to lighten the labors of to-day by bright 
visions of to-morrow. 

There is a school in medicine, whose chief claim 
is, that it invites and prepares Nature to act in the 
removal of disease. 

We pass no judgment upon this claim ; but he is, 
no doubt, the best teacher who does little for his 
pupils, while he incites and encourages them to do 
much for themselves. Extensive knowledge will 
enable the teacher to do this. 

He is a poor instructor of mathematics who sees 
only the dry details of rules, tables and problems, 



216 Normal School Training. 

and never ascends to the contemplation of those 
supreme wonders of the universe which mathemat- 
ical astronomy has laid open. The grammar of a 
language is defined to be the art of reading and 
writing that language with propriety. The study 
of its elements is dry and uninteresting ; and, while 
the teacher dwells with care upon the merits of the 
text, he should also lift the veil from that which is 
hidden, and lead his pupils to appreciate those riches 
of learning which the knowledge of a language may 
confer upon the student. 

It is useful to know the division of the globe into 
continents and oceans, islands and lakes, mountains 
and rivers — and this knowledge the text-books con- 
tain ; but it is a higher learning to understand the 
effect of this division upon climate, soil and natural 
productions — upon the character and pursuits of 
the human race. Books are so improved that they 
may very well take the place of poor, or even ordi- 
nary teachers. 

Explanations and illustrations are numerous and 
appropriate, and very little remains for the mere 
text-book teacher to do. But, when the duties of 
teacher and the exercises of the school-room ar^ 
properly performed, the entire range of science, busi- 
ness, literature and art, is presented to the student. 
May it be your fortune to see education thus ele- 



Normal School Training. 217 

vated here, and then will the same spirit be infused 
into the public schools of the vicinity. 

The Massachusetts system of education is a noble 
tribute to freedom of thought. The power of edu- 
cating a people, which is, in fine, the chief power in 
a state, has been often, if not usually, perverted to 
the support of favored opinions in religion and gov- 
ernment. The boasted system of Prussia is only a 
prop and ally of the existing order of things. In 
France, Napoleon makes the press, which has be- 
come in civilized countries an educator of the people, 
the mere instrument of his will. Tyrants do not 
hesitate to pervert schools and the press, learning 
and literature, to the support of tyranny. But with 
us the press and the school are free ; and this free- 
dom, denied through fear in other countries, is the 
best evidence of the stability of our institutions. It 
is now a hundred years since an attempt was made 
in Massachusetts to exercise legal censorship over 
the press ; but we occasionally hear of movements 
to make the public schools of America subservient 
to sect or party. The success of these movements 
would be as great a calamity as can ever befall a 
free people. Ignorance would take the place of 
learning, and slavery would usurp the domain of 
liberty. 

No defence, excuse, or palliation, can be offered 
19 



218 Normal School Training. 

for such movements ; and their triumph will surely 
produce all the evils which it is possible for an en- 
lightened people to endure. Our system of instruc- 
tion is what it professes to be, — a public system. 
As sects or parties, we have no claim whatever upon 
it. A man is not taxed because he is of a particular 
faith in religion, or party in politics ; he is not taxed 
because he is the father of a family, or excused be- 
cause he is not ; but he contributes to the cause of 
education because he is a citizen, and has an interest 
in that general intelligence which decides questions 
of faith and practice as they arise. It is for the 
interest of all that all shall be educated for the 
various pursuits and duties of the time. The educa- 
tion of children is, no doubt, first in individual duty. 
It is the duty of the parent, the duty of the friend ; 
but, above all, it is the duty of the public. This 
duty arises from the relations of men in every civil- 
ized state ; but in a popular government it becomes 
a necessity. The people are the source of power — 
the sovereign. And is it more important in a mon- 
archy than in a republic that the ruler be intelligent, 
virtuous, and in all respects qualified for his duties ? 

The institution here set up is an essential part of 
our system of public instruction, and, as such, it 
claims the public favor, sympathy and support. 

This is a period of excitement in all the affairs and 



Normal School Training. 219 

relations of men, and America is fast becoming the 
central point of these activities. They are, no 
doubt, associated with many blessings, but they 
may also be attended by great evils. We claim for 
our country preeminence in education. This may be 
just, but it is also true that Americans, more than 
any other people, need to be better educated than 
they are. Where else is the field of statesmanship 
so large, or the necessity for able statesmen so 
great ? 

With the single exception of Great Britain, there 
is no nation whose relations are such as to require a 
union in rulers of the rarest practical abilities with 
accurate, sound and varied learning ; and there is no 
nation whose people are so critical in the tests they 
apply to their public agents. We need men thor- 
oughly educated in all the departments of learning ; 
to which ought to be added, travel in foreign coun- 
tries, and an intimate acquaintance with every part 
of our own. Such men we have had — such men we 
have now ; but they will be more and more import- 
ant as we advance in numbers, territory and power. 
A corresponding culture is necessary in theology, in 
law, and in all the pursuits of industry. 

No other nation has so great a destiny. That 
destiny is manifest, and may be read in the heart 
and purpose of the people. They seek new terri- 



220 Normal School Training. 

torieS; an increase of population, the prosperity of 
commerce, of all the arts of industry, and preemi- 
nence in virtue, learning and intellectual power. 
And all this they can attain ; for the destiny of a 
people, within the limits prescribed by reason, is 
determined by themselves. If, however, by con- 
quest, annexation and absorption, we acquire new 
territories, and strange races and nations of men, and 
yet neglect education, every step will but increase 
our burdens and perils, and hasten our decay. 



FEMALE EDUCATION. 

[An Address before the Newburyport Female High School.] 

I ACCEPTED, without a moment's delay, the invita- 
tion of the principal of this school to deliver the 
customary address on this, the fifteenth anniversary 
of its establishment. My presence here in connec- 
tion with public instruction is not a proper subject 
for comment by myself; but I have now come, allow 
me to say, with unusual alacrity, that we may to- 
gether recognize the claims of an institution which 
■furnishes the earliest evidence existing among us of 
a special design on the part of the public to provide 
adequate intellectual and moral training for the 
young women of the state. 

Those movements which have accomplished most 
for religion, liberty, and learning, have not been 
sudden in their origin nor rapid in their progress. 
Christianity has been preached eighteen hundred 
years, yet it is not now received, even intellect- 
ually, by the larger part of the human race. Magna 
Charta is six centuries old, but its principles are not 
accepted by all the nations of Europe and America ; 
19* (221) 



222 Female Education. 

and it is not, therefore, strange that a system of pub- 
lic instruction, originated by the Puritans of New 
England, should yet be struggling against prejudice 
and error. In Asia woman is degraded, and in 
Europe her common condition is that of apparent 
and absolute inferiority. When America was settled 
she became a participator in the struggles and suffer- 
ings which awaited the pioneers of civilization and 
liberty on this continent, and she thus earned a place 
in family, religious, and even in public life, which 
foreshowed her certain and speedy disenthrallment 
from the tyranny of tradition and time. Her rights 
with us are secure, and the anxiety and boisterous 
alarm exhibited by some strong-minded women, and 
the horror-fringed apprehensions and prophecies of 
some weak-minded men, are equally unreasonable 
and absurd. Woman is sharing the lot of humanity, 
and therewith she ought to be content. Man does 
not remove the burden of ignorance and oppression 
from his sex, merely, but generally from his kind. 
At least, this is the experience and promise of Amer- 
ica. If woman does not vote because she is woman, 
so and for the same reason she is not subject to per- 
sonal taxation. It is an error to suppose that voting 
is a privilege, and taxation, ever and always, a bur- 
den. Both are duties ; and the privilege of the one 
and the burden of the other are only incidental and 



Female Education. 223 

subordinate. The human family is an aggregation 
of families ; and the family, not the man nor the 
woman, is the unit of the state. The civil law as- 
sumes the existence of the family relation, and its 
unity where it exists ; hence taxation of the woman 
brings no revenue to the state that might not have 
been secured by the taxation of the man ; and hence 
the exercise of the elective franchise by the woman 
brings no additional political power ; for, in the 
theory of the relation to which there are, in fact, 
but few exceptions, there is in the household but 
one political idea, and but one agent is needed for 
its expression. The ballot is the judgment of the 
family ; not of the man, merely, nor of the woman, 
nor 5^et, indeed, always of both, even. The first smile 
that the father receives from the child affects every 
subsequent vote in municipal concerns, and likely 
enough also in national affairs. From that moment 
forward, he judges constables, selectmen, magis- 
trates, aldermen, mayors, school-committees, and 
councillors, with an altered judgment. The result 
of the election is not the victory or defeat of the 
man alone ; it is the triumph or prostration of a prin- 
ciple or purpose with which the family is identified. 
Is it said that there is occasionally, if not fre- 
quently, a divided judgment in the household upon 
those questions that are decided by the ballot ? This 



224 Female Education. 

must, of course, be granted as an exceptional condi- 
tion of domestic life ; but, for the wisest reasons of 
public policy, whose avoidance by the state would 
be treachery to humanity, the law universal can 
recognize only the general condition of things. So, 
and for kindred but not equally strong reasons, the 
elective franchise is exercised by men without fami- 
lies, and denied to those women who by the dispen- 
sations of Divine Providence are called to preside in 
homes where the father's face is seen no more. But 
why, in the eye of the state, shall the man stand as 
the head of the family, rather than the woman ? Be- 
cause God has so ordained it ; and no civil commu- 
nity has ever yet escaped from the force of His 
decree in this respect. Those whose physical power 
defends the nation, or tribe, or family, are naturally 
called upon to decide what the means of defence 
shall be. Is not woman, then, the equal of man ? 
We cannot say of woman, with reference to man, that 
she is his superior, or his inferior, or his equal ; nor 
can we say of man, with reference to woman, that he 
is her superior, or her inferior, or her equal. He is 
her protector, she is his helpmeet. His strength is 
sufficient for her weakness, and her power is the sup- 
port of his irresolution and want of faith. Woman's 
rights are not man's rights ; nor are man's rights the 
measure of woman's rights. If she should assert her 



Female Education. 225 

independence, as some idiosyncratic persons desire, 
she could only declare her intention to do all those 
acts and things which woman may of right do. 
Given that this is accomplished, and I know not 
that she would possess one additional domestic, 
political, or public right, or enjoy one privilege in 
the family, neighborhood, or state, to which she is 
not, in some degree, at least, already accustomed. 

These views and reflections may serve to illustrate 
and enforce the leading position of this address — 
that we are to educate young women for the enjoy- 
ments and duties of the sphere in which they are to 
move. We speak to-day of public instruction ; but 
it should ever be borne in mind that the education 
of the schools is but a part, and often only the least 
important part, of the training that the young re- 
ceive. There is the training of infancy and early 
childhood, the daily culture of home, with its refining 
or deadening influences, and then the education of 
the street, the parlor, the festive gathering, and the 
clubs, which exert a power over the youth of both 
sexes that cannot often be controlled entirely by the 
school. 

Womanhood is sometimes sacrificed in childhood, 
when the mother and the family fail to develop the 
womanly qualities of modesty, grace, generosity of 



226 Female Education. 

character, and geniality of temper, which dignify, 
adorn, and protect, 

" The sex whose presence civilizes ours." 

The child, whether girl or boy, reflects the charac- 
ter of its home ; and therefore we are compelled to 
deal with all the homes of the district or town, and 
are required often to counteract the influences they 
exert. Early vicious training is quite as disastrous 
to the girl as to the boy ; for, strange as it may seem, 
the world more readily tolerates ignorance, coarse- 
ness, rudeness, immodesty, and all their answering 
vices, in man than in woman. In the period of life 
from eight to twenty years of age the progress of 
woman is, to us of sterner mould, inconceivably rapid ; 
but from twenty to forty the advantages of educa- 
tion are upon the other side. It then follows that a 
defective system of education is more pernicious to 
woman than to man. 

We may contemplate woman in four relations with 
their answering responsibilities — as pupil, teacher, 
companion, and mother. As a pupil, she is sensitive, 
conscientious, quick, ambitious, and possesses in 
a marvellous degree, as compared with the other sex, 
the power of intuition. The boy is logical, or he is 
nothing ; but logic is not necessary for the girl. Not 
that she is illogical ; but she usually sees through, 



Female Education. 227 

without observing the steps in the process which a 
boy must discern before he can comprehend the sub- 
ject presented to his mind. In the use of the eye, 
the ear, the voice, and in the appropriation of what- 
ever may be commanded without the highest exer- 
cise of the reasoning and reflective faculties, she is 
incomparably superior. She accepts moral truth 
without waiting for a demonstration, and she obeys 
the law founded upon it without being its slave. 
She instinctively prefers good manners to faulty 
habits ; and, in the requirements of family, social, and 
fashionable life, she is better educated at sixteen 
than her brother is at twenty. She is an adept in 
one only of the vices of the school — whispering — 
and in that she excels. But she does not so readily 
resort to the great vice — the crime of falsehood — as 
do her companions of the other sex. I call false- 
hood the great vice, because, if this were unknown, 
tardiness, truancy, obscenity, and profanity, could 
not thrive. Holmes has well said that "sin has 
many tools, but a lie is the handle that will fit 
them all.'' 

In many primary and district schools the habits 
and manners of children are too much neglected. 
We associate good habits and good manners with 
good morals ; and, though we are deceived again 
and again, and soliloquize upon the maxim that " all 



228 Female Education. 

is not gold that glitters/' we instinctively believO; 
however often we are betrayed. Habits and man- 
ners are the first evidence of character ; and so much 
of weight do we attach to such evidence, that we 
give credit and confidence to those whom in our 
calmer moments we know to be unworthy. The 
first aim in the school should be to build up a char- 
acter that shall be truthfully indicated by purity and 
refinement of manner and conversation. It does, 
indeed, sometimes happen that purity of character 
is not associated with refinement of manners. This 
misfortune is traceable to a defective early educa- 
tion, both in the school and the home ; for, had 
either been faithful and intelligent, the evil would 
have been averted. And, as there are many homes 
in city and country where refinement of manners is 
not found, and, of course, cannot be taught, the 
schools must furnish the training. In this connection, 
the value of the high school for females — whether ex- 
clusively so or not, does not seem to me important — 
is clearly seen. Young women are naturally and 
properly the teachers of primary, district, and sub- 
ordinate schools of every grade ; and society as 
naturally and properly looks to them to educate, by 
example as well as by precept, all the children of the 
state in good habits, good manners, and good morals. 
We are also permitted to look forward to the higher 



Female Education. 229 

relations of life, wlieii; as wives and mothers, they 
are to exert a potent influence over existing and 
future generations. The law and the lexicons say 
"home is the house or the place where one resides/' 
This definition may answer for the law and the lexi- 
cons, but it does not meet the wants of common life. 
The wife will usually find in her husband less 
refinement of manners than she herself possesses ; 
and it is her great privilege, if not her solemn duty, 
to illustrate the line of Cowper, and show that she 
is of 

" The sex whose presence civilizes ours." 

It is the duty of the teacher to make the school 
attractive ; and what the teacher should do for 
the school the wife should do for the home. The 
home should be preferred by the husband and chil- 
dren to all other places. Much depends upon 
themselves ; they have no right to claim all of the 
wife and mother. But, without her aid, they can 
do but little. With her aid, every desirable result 
may be accomplished. That this result may be se- 
cured, female education must be generous, critical, 
and pure, in everything that relates to manners, hab- 
its, and morals. Much may be added to these, but 
nothing can serve in their stead. We should add, 
no doubt, thorough elementary training in reading, 
writing, and spelling, both for her own good and for 
20 



230 Female Education. 

the service of her children. Intellectual training is 
defective where these elements are neglected, and 
their importance to the sexes may be equal. We 
should not omit music and the culture of the voice. 
The tones of the voice indicate the tone of the mind ; 
but the temper itself may finally yield to a graceful 
and gentle form of expression. It is not probable 
that we shall ever give due attention to the cultiva- 
tion of the human voice for speaking, reading, and 
singing. This is an invaluable accomplishment in 
man. Many of us have listened to New England's 
most distinguished living orator, and felt that well- 
known lines from the English poets derived new 
power, if not actual inspiration, from the classic 
tones in which the words were uttered. 

A cultivated voice in woman is at once the evi- 
dence and the means of moral power. As the moral 
sensibilities of the girl are more acute than those 
of the boy, so the moral power of the woman is 
greater than that of the man. Many young women 
are educating themselves for the business of teach- 
ing ; and I can commend nothing more important, 
after the proper ordering of one 's own life, than the 
discreet and careful training of the voice. It is itself 
a power. It demands sympathy before the suffering 
or its cause is revealed by articulate speech ; its 
tones awe assemblies, and command silence before 



Female Education. 231 

the speaker announces his views ; and the rebellious 
and disorderly, whether in the school, around the 
rostrum, or on the field, bow in submission beneath 
the authority of its majestic cadences. It is hardly 
possible to imagine a good school, and very rare to 
see one, where this power is wanting in the teacher. 
Women are often called to take charge of schools 
where there are lads and youth destitute of that 
culture which would lead them to yield respect and 
consequent obedience. Physical force in these cases 
is not usually to be thought of; but nature has 
vouchsafed to woman such a degree of moral power, 
of which in the school the voice is the best expres- 
sion, as often to fully compensate for her weakness 
in other respects. 

It is unnecessary to commend reading as an art 
and an accomplishment ; but good readers are so 
rare among us, that we cannot too strongly urge 
teachers to qualify themselves for the great work. I 
say great work, because everything else is compara- 
tively easy to the teacher, and comparatively unim- 
portant to the pupil. Grammar is merely an element 
of reading. It should be introduced as soon as the 
child's reasoning faculties are in any degree devel- 
oped, and presented by the living voice, without the 
aid of books. The alphabet should be taught in con- 
nection with exercises for strengthening and modu- 



232 Female Education. 

lating the voice, and the elementary sounds of the 
letters should be deemed as important as their 
names. All this is the proper work of the female 
teacher ; and, when she is ignorant or neglects her 
duty, the evil is usually so great as to admit of no 
complete remedy. 

Reading is at once an imitative and an apprecia- 
tive art on the part of the pupil. He must be trained 
to appreciate the meaning of the writer ; but he will 
depend upon the teacher at first, and, indeed, for a 
long time, for an example of the true mode of ex- 
pression. This the teacher must be ready to give. 
It is not enough that she can correct faults of pro- 
nunciation, censure inarticulate utterances, and con- 
demn gruff, nasal, and guttural sounds ; but she 
must be able to present, in reasonable purity, all the 
opposite qualities. The young women have not yet 
done their duty to the cause of education in these re- 
spects ; nor is there everywhere a public sentiment 
that will even now allow the duty to be performed. 

It is difficult to see why the child of five, and the 
youth of fifteen, should be kept an equal number of 
hours at school. Each pupil should spend as much 
time in the school-room as is needed for the prepara- 
tion of the exercise and the exercise itself. The 
danger from excessive confinement and labor is 
with young pupils. Those in grammar and high 



Female Education. 233 

schools may often use additional hours for study ; 
but a pupil should be somewhat advanced, and 
should possess considerable physical strength and 
endurance, before he ventures to give more than six 
hours a day to severe intellectual labor. It must often 
happen that children in primary schools can learn in 
two hours each day all that the teacher has time to 
communicate, or they have power to receive and 
appropriate. Indeed, I think this is usually so. It 
may not, however, be safe to deduce from this fact 
the opinion that children should never be kept longer 
in school than two hours a day ; but it seems proper 
to assume that, if blessed with good homes, they 
may be relieved from the tedium of confinement in 
the school-room, when there is no longer opportunity 
for improvement. 

We are beginning to realize the advantages of 
well-educated female teachers in primary schools ; 
nor do I deem it improbable that they shall be- 
come successful teachers and managers of schools 
of higher grade, according to the present public 
estimation. But, in regard to the latter position, 
I have neither hope, desire, nor anxiety. When- 
ever the public judge them, generally, or in particu- 
lar cases, qualified to take charge of high schools 
and normal schools, those positions will be assigned 
to them ; and, till that degree of public confidence is 
20* 



234 Female Education. 

accorded, it is useless to make assertions or indulge 
in conjectures concerning the ability of women for 
such duties. It is my own conviction that a higher 
order of teaching talent is required in the primaiy 
school, or for the early, judicious education of chil- 
dren, than is required in any other institutions of 
learning. Nor can it be shown that equal ability for 
government is not essential. There must be differ- 
ent manifestations of ability in the primary and the 
high school ; but, where proper training has been 
enjoyed, pupils in the latter ought to be far advanced 
in the acquisition of the cardinal virtue of self-con- 
trol, whose existence in the school and the state 
renders government comparatively unnecessary. 

Where there is a human being, there are the oppor- 
tunity and the duty of education. But our present 
great concern, as friends of learning, is with those 
schools where children are first trained in the ele- 
ments. If in these we can have faithful, accurate, 
systematic, comprehensive teaching, everything else 
desirable will be added thereunto. But, if we are 
negligent, unphilosophical, and false, the reasonable 
public expectation will never be realized in regard 
to other institutions of learning. 

The work must be done by women, and by well- 
educated women ; and, when it is said that in Massa- 
chusetts alone we need the services of six thousand 



Female Education. 235 

such persons, the magnitude of the work of pro- 
viding teachers may be appreciated. Have we not 
enough in this field for every female school and acad- 
emy, where high schools are not required, or cannot 
exist, and for every high school and normal school 
in the commonwealth ? If it is asserted that the 
supply of female teachers is already greater than the 
demand, it must be stated, in reply, that there are 
persons enough engaged in teaching, but that the 
number of competent teachers is, and ever has been, 
too small. It is something, my friends, it is often a 
great deal, to send into a town a well-qualified 
female teacher. She is not only a blessing to those 
who are under her tuition, but her example and influ- 
ence are often such as to change the local sentiment 
concerning teachers and schools. When may we 
expect a supply of such persons ? The hope is not 
a delusion, though its realization may be many years 
postponed. How are competent persons to be se- 
lected and qualified ? The change will be gradual, 
and it is to be made in the public opinion as well as 
in the character of teachers and schools. And is it 
not possible, even in view of all that has been accom- 
plished, that we are yet groping in a dark passage, 
with only the hope that it leads to an outward-open- 
ing door, where, in marvellous but genial light, we 
shall perceive new truths concerning the philosophy 



236 Female Education. 

of the human mind, and the means of its develop- 
ment ? At this moment we are compelled to admit 
that practical teachers and theorists in educational 
matters are alike uncertain in regard to the true 
method of teaching the alphabet, and divided and 
subdivided in opinion concerning the order of suc- 
cession of the various studies in the primary and 
grammar schools. Perfect agreement on these points 
is not probable ; it may not be desirable. I am sat- 
isfied that no greater contribution can be made to 
the cause of learning than a presentation of these 
topics and their elucidation, so that the teacher 
shall feel that what he does is philosophical, and 
therefore wise. 

The only way to achieve success is to apply faith- 
fully the means at hand. Generations of children 
cannot wait for perfection in methods of teaching ; 
but teachers of primary schools ought not to neglect 
any opportunity which promises aid to them as indi- 
viduals, or progress in the profession that they have 
chosen. As teachers improve, so do schools ; and, 
as schools improve, so do teachers. The influence 
exerted by teachers is first beneficial to pupils, but, 
as a result, we soon have a class of better qualified 
teachers. With these ideas of the importance of 
the teacher's vocation to primary instruction, and, 
consequently, to all good learning, it is not strange 



Female Education. 237 

that I place a high value upon professional training. 
A degree of professional training more or less de- 
sirable is, no doubt, furnished by every school ; but 
the admission does not in any manner detract from 
the force of the statement that a young man or 
woman well qualified in the branches to be taught, 
yet without experience, may be strengthened and 
prepared for the work of teaching, by devoting six, 
twelve, or eighteen months, under competent in- 
structors, in company with a hundred other persons 
having a similar object in view, to the study, exam- 
ination, and discussion, of those subjects and topics 
which are sometimes connected with, and sometimes 
independent of, the text-books, but which are of 
daily value to the teacher. 

At present only a portion of this necessary pro- 
fessional training can be given in the normal 
schools. If, however, as I trust may sometimes be 
the case, none should be admitted but those who 
are already qualified in the branches to be taught, 
the time of attendance might be diminished, and 
the number of graduates proportionately increased. 
There are about one hundred high schools in the 
state, and, within the sphere of their labors, they are 
not equalled by any institutions that the world has 
seen. Young men are fitted for the colleges, for 
mechanical, manufacturing, commercial, agricultural, 



238 Female Education. 

and scientific labors, and young men and young 
women are prepared for the general duties of life. 
They are also furnishing a large number of well- 
qualified teachers. Some may say that with these 
results we ought to be content. Kegarding only 
the past, they are entirely satisfactory ; but, ani- 
mated with reasonable hopes concerning the future, 
we claim something more and better. It is not 
disguised that the members of normal schools, when 
admitted, do not sustain an average rank in scholar- 
ship with graduates of high schools. This is a 
misfortune from which relief is sought. It is a sug- 
gestion, diffidently made, yet with considerable con- 
fidence in its practicability and value, that graduates 
of high schools will often obtain additional and 
necessary preparation by attending a normal school, 
if for the term of six months only. And I am satis- 
fied, beyond all rea'sonable doubt, that, when the 
normal schools receive only those whose education 
is equivalent to that now given in the high schools, 
a body of teachers will be sent out who will surpass 
the graduates of any other institution, and whose 
average professional attainments and practical excel- 
lence will meet the highest reasonable public expect- 
ation. Nor is it claimed that this result will be due 
to anything known or practised in normal schools that 
may not be known and practised elsewhere ; but it 



Female Education. 239 

is rather attributable to the fact that in these in- 
stitutions the attention of teachers and pupils is 
directed almost exclusivel}^ to the work of teach- 
ing, and the means of preparation. The studies, 
thoughts, and discussions, are devoted to this end. 
If, with such opportunities, there should be no prog- 
ress, we should be led to doubt all our previous 
knowledge of human character, and of the develop- 
ment of the youthful mind. 

And now, ladies and gentlemen, before I con- 
clude, allow me to remove, or at least to lessen, an 
impression that these remarks are calculated to pro- 
duce. I have assumed that teaching is a profession 
■ — an arduous profession — and that perfection has 
not yet been attained. I have assumed, also, that 
there are many persons engag-ed in teaching, espe- 
cially in the primary and mixed district schools, 
whose qualifications are not as great as they ought 
to be. But let it not be thence inferred that I am 
dissatisfied with our teachers and schools. There 
has been continual progress in education, and a large 
share of this progress is due to teachers ; but the 
time has not yet come when we can wisely fold 
our arms, and accept the allurements of undisturbed 
repose. 

Nor have I sought, on this occasion, to present 
even an outline of a system of female education. In 



240 Female Education. 

all the public institutions of learning among us, it 
should be as comprehensive, as minute, as exact, as 
that furnished for youth of the other sex. Nor is it 
necessary to concern ourselves about the effect of 
this liberal culture upon the character and fortunes 
of society. I do not anticipate any sudden or dis- 
astrous effects. The right of education is a common 
right ; and it is unquestionably the right of woman 
to assert her rights ; and it is a wrong and sin if 
we withhold any, even the least. Having faith in 
humanity, and faith in God, let us not shrink from 
the privilege we enjoy of offering to all, without 
reference to sex or condition, the benefits of a public 
and liberal system of education, which seeks, in an 
alliance with virtue and religion, whose banns are 
forbidden by none, to enlighten the ignorant, restrain 
and reform the depraved, and penetrate all society 
with good learning and civilization, so that the high- 
est idea of a well-ordered state shall be realized in an 
advanced and advancing condition of individual and 
family life. 



THE INFLUENCE, DUTIES, AND REWARDS, OF TEACH- 
ERS. 

[A Lecture delivered at Teachers' Institutes.] 

It is the purpose, and we believe that it wiU be 
the destiny, of Massachusetts, to build up a com- 
paratively perfect system of public instruction. To 
this antiquity did not aspire ; and it is the just boast 
of modern times, and especially of the American 
States, that learning is not the amusement of a few 
only, whom wealth and taste have led into its paths, 
but that it is encouraged by governments, and cher- 
ished by the whole people. Antiquity had its schools 
and teachers ; but the latter were, for the most 
part, founders of sects in politics, morals, philos- 
ophy, religion, or the habits of daily life ; while its 
schools were frequented and sustained by those who 
sought to build on the civilization of the times such 
structures as their tastes conceived or their opinions^ 
dictated. 

There were not in Athens or Rome, according to 
the American idea, any schools for the people ; and 
Carlyle, Brownson, and Emerson, are such teachers 
21 (241) 



242 Influence, Duties, and 

in kind, though not in power and influence, as were 
Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. These men were 
leaders as well as teachers, and their followers were 
disciples and controversialists rather than pupils. 
But it is not possible for modern leaders in politics, 
philosophy, and social life, to rival the ancients. 
Manual labor is not more divided and subdivided 
than is the influence of the human intellect. The 
newspaper has inspired every man with the love of 
self-judgment, and the common school has qualified 
him, in some degree, for its exercise. The ancients, 
whose names and fame have come down to us, taught 
by conversations, discussions, and lectures ; the mod- 
erns, as Carlyle, Brownson, and Emerson, by lectures, 
essays, and reviews. But these systems are quite 
inadequate to meet the wants of American civiliza- 
tion. 

Indeed, however men of talent may strive, there 
cannot be another Socrates, Plato, or Aristotle ; for 
the printing-press has come, and their occupation 
has gone. Teachers were philosophers, pupils were 
followers and disciples, while learning was devoted 
to the support of speculations and theories. 

But, while we have no such teachers as those of 
Athens, and need no such schools as they founded, 
we have teachers and schools whose character and 
genius correspond to the age in which we live. 



Rewards of Teachers. 243 

Teaching is a profession ; not merely an ignoble 
pursuit, nor a toy of scholastic ambition, but a pro- 
fession enjoying the public confidence, requiring 
great talents, demanding great industry, and secur- 
ing, permit me to say, great rewards. To be the 
leader of a sect or the founder of a school, is some- 
thing ; but the acceptable teacher is superior to 
either ; he is the first and chief exponent of a popu- 
lar sovereignty which seeks happiness and immortal- 
ity for itself by elevating and refining the parts of 
which it is composed. The ancient teacher gathered 
his hearers, disciples, and pupils, in the streets, 
groves, and public squares. The modern teacher is 
comparatively secluded ; but let him not hence infer 
that he is without influence. Socrates, Plato, and 
Aristotle, had their triumphs ; but none more dis- 
tinguished than that of a Massachusetts teacher, 
who, at the age of fourscore years, on a festive day, 
received from his former pupils — and among them 
were the most eminent of the land — sincere and 
affectionate assurances of esteem and gratitude. The 
pupil may be estranged from the master in opinion, 
for our system does not concern itself with opinions, 
political or religious ; but the faithful teacher will 
always find the evidence of his fidelity in the lives 
of those intrusted to his care. No position is more 
important than the teacher's ; and his influence is 



244 Influence, Duties, and 

next to that of the parent. It is his high and noble 
province to touch the youthful mind, test its quality, 
and develop its characteristics. He often stands in 
the place of the parent. He aids in "giving charac- 
ter to the generations of men ; v^hich is at once a 
higher art and a purer glory than distinguishes those 
who build the walls of cities, or lay the foundations 
of empires. The cities which contested for the honor 
of being the birthplace of Homer are forgotten, or 
remembered only because they contested for the 
honor, while Homer himself is immortal. If, then, 
the mere birth of a human being is an honor to a 
city, how illustrious the distinction of those who 
guide the footsteps of youth along the rugged paths 
of learning, and develop in a generation the princi- 
ples of integrity and mercy, justice and freedom, 
government and humanity ! If in a lifetime of toil 
the teacher shall bring out of the mass of common 
minds one Franklin, or Howard, or Channing, or 
Bowditch, he will have accomplished more than is 
secured by the devotees of wealth, or the disciples 
of pleasure. As the man is more important than the 
mere philosopher, so is the modern teacher more 
elevated than the ancient. 

The true teacher takes hold of the practical and 
elementary, as distinguished from the learning whose 
chief or sole value is in display. Present gratifica- 



Rewards of Teachers. 245 

tion is desirable, especially to parents and teachers ; 
but it may be secured at the cost of solid learning 
and real progress. This is a serious error among 
us, and it will not readily be abandoned ; but it is 
the duty of teachers, and of all parents who are 
friends to genuine learning, to aid in its removal. 
We are inclined to treat the period of school-life as 
though it covered the entire time that ought prop- 
erly to be devoted to education. The first result — 
a result followed by pernicious consequences — is 
that the teacher is expected to give instruction in 
every branch that the pupil, as child, youth, or adult, 
may need to know. It is impossible that instruction 
so varied should always be good. Learning is knowl- 
edge of subjects based and built upon a thorough 
acquaintance with their elements. The path of 
duty, therefore, should lead the teacher to make his 
instruction thorough in a few branches, rather than 
attempt to extend it over a great variety of subjects. 
This, to the teacher who is employed in a district or 
town but three or six months, is a hard course, and 
many may not be inclined to pursue it. Something, 
no doubt, must be yielded to parents ; but they, too, 
should be educated to a true view of their children's 
interests. As the world is, a well-spoken declama- 
tion is more gratifying to parents, and more credita- 
ble to teachers, than the most careful training in the 
21* 



246 Influence, Duties, and 

vowel-sounds ; yet the latter is infinitely more val- 
uable to the scholar. Neither progress in the 
languages nor knowledge of mathematics can com- 
pensate for the want of a thorough etymological 
discipline. This training should be primary in point 
of time, as well as elementary in character ; and a 
classical education is no adequate compensation. 

Elements are all-important to the teacher and the 
student. It is not possible to have an idea of a 
square without some idea of a straight line, nor to 
express with pencil or words the arc of a circle with- 
out a previous conception of the curve. Combination 
follows in course. We are driven to it. Our own 
minds, all nature, all civilization, tend to the combi- 
nation of elements. 

We think fast,- live fast, learn fast, and, as the 
fashion of the world requires a knowledge of many 
things, we crowd the entire education of our children 
into the short period of school-life. Here, and just 
here, public sentiment ought to relieve the teacher 
by reforming itself. 

It should be understood that school-life is to be 
devoted to the thorough discipline of the mind to 
study, and to an acquaintance with those simple, 
elementary branches, which are the foundation of all 
good learning. When a knowledge of the elements 
is secured, then the languages, mathematics, and all 



Rewards of Teachers. 247 

science, may be pursued with enthusiasm and suc- 
cess by a class of men well educated in every de- 
partment. Public sentiment must allow the teacher 
to give careful instruction in reading arid spelling, 
for example, in the most comprehensive meaning of 
those terms — in the sound and power of letters, 
in the composition and use of words, and in the 
natural construction of sentences. This, of course, 
includes a knowledge of grammar, not as a 'dry, phi- 
lological study, but as a science ; not as composed of 
arbitrary rules, merely, but as the common and best 
judgment of men concerning the use and power of 
language, of which rules and definitions are but an 
imperfect expression. 

Nor do we herein assign the teacher to neglect or 
obscurity. He, as well as others, must have faith in 
the future. His reward may be distant, but it is 
certain. 

It is, however, likely that the labors of a faithful 
elementary teacher will be appreciated immediately, 
and upon the scene of his toil. But, if they are not, 
his pupils, advancing in age and increasing in knowl- 
edge, will remember with gratitude and in words tlie 
self-sacrificing labors of their master. 

We are not so constituted as to labor without 
motive. With some the motive is high, with others 
it is low and grovelling. The teacher must be him- 



248 Influence, Duties, and 

self elevated, or he cannot elevate otners. The 
pupil may, indeed, advance to a higher sphere than 
that occupied by the teacher ; but it is only because 
he draws from a higher fountain elsewhere. In such 
cases the success of the pupil is not the success of 
the master. He who labors as a teacher for mere 
money, or for temporary fame, which is even less 
valuable, cannot choose a calling more ignoble, nor 
can he ever rise to a higher ; for his sordid motives 
bring all pursuits to the low level of his own nature. 
. Yet it is not to be assumed that the teacher, more 
than the clergyman, is to labor without pecuniary 
compensation ; for, while money should not be the 
sole object of any man's life, it is, under the influ- 
ence of our civilization, essential to the happiness 
of us all. Wealth, properly acquired and properly 
used, may become a means of self-education. It 
purchases relief from the harassing toil of uninter- 
rupted manual labor. It is the only introduction we 
can have to the thoroughfares of travel by which we 
are made acquainted personally with the globe that 
we inhabit. It brings to our firesides books, paint- 
ings, and statuary, by which we learn something 
of the world as it is and as it was. It gives us 
the telescope and the microscope, by whose agency 
we are able to appreciate, even though but imper- 
fectly, the immensity of creation on the one hand, 



Rewards of Teachers. 249 

and its infinity on the other. The teacher is not to 
labor without money, nor to despise it more than 
other men ; and the public might as well expect 
the free services of the minister, lawyer, physician, 
or farmer, as to expect the gratuitous or cheap 
education of their children. While the teacher is 
educating others, he must also educate himself. 
This he cannot do without both leisure and money. 
The advice of lago is, therefore, good advice for 
teachers : " Go, make money. * * Put money 
enough in your purse." The teacher's motives 
should be above mere gain ; though this view of 
the subject does not, as some might infer, lead to 
the conclusion that he ought to labor for inade- 
quate compensation. 

When George III. was first insane. Dr. Willis was 
called to the immediate personal charge of the king. 
Dr. Willis had been educated to the church, and a 
living had been assigned him ; but, becoming inter- 
ested in the subject of insanity, he had established 
an asylum, and gained a distinguished position in 
his new profession. The suffering monarch was 
sadly puzzled to know why Dr. Willis was with him, 
and how he had been brought there. The custodian 
was not very definite in his explanations, but sug- 
gested that he came to comfort the king in his afi&ic- 
tions ; and, said he, "You know that our Saviour 



250 Influence, Duties, and 

went about doing good.'' — "Yes/' said the king, 
"but he never received seven hundred pounds a 
year for it." This was good wit, especially good 
royal wit, because unexpected. But there is no 
reason why actual monarchs of England, or coming 
monarchs of America, should be treated or taught 
gratuitously. The compensation, the living of the 
teacher, is one thing ; the motive may and ought to 
be quite different. The teacher should labor in his 
profession because he loves it, because he does good 
in it, and because he can in that sphere answer a 
high purpose of existence. These being the motives 
of the teacher, he should educate, draw out, cor- 
responding ones in his pupils. 

The teacher is not to create — he is to draw out. 
Every child has the germs of many, and, it may be, 
quite different qualities of character. Look at the 
infant. It is so constituted that it may have a stal- 
wart arm, broad chest, and well-rounded, vigorous 
muscles ; but yet it may come to adult age destitute 
of these physical excellences. Yet you will not say 
that the elements did not exist in the child. They 
were there ; but, being neglected, they followed a law 
of our nature, that the development of a faculty 
depends upon its exercise. Nature will develop 
some quality in every man ; for our existence de- 
mands the exercise of a part of our faculties. 



Rewards of Teachers. 251 

The faculty used will be developed in excess as 
compared with other faculties. It is the business 
of the teacher to aid nature. For the most part, 
he must stimulate, encourage, draw out, develop, 
though it may happen that he will be required oc- 
casionally to check a tendency which threatens to 
absorb or overshadow all the others. He must, at 
any rate, prevent the growth of those powers which 
tend towards the savage state. 

While the teacher creates nothing, he must so draw 
out the qualities of the child that it may attain to 
perfect manhood. He moulds, he renders symmet- 
rical, the physical, the intellectual, the moral man. 
Nature sometimes does this herself, as though she 
would occasionally furnish a model man for our imita- 
tion, as she has given lines, and forms, and colors, 
which all artists of all ages shall copy, but cannot 
equal. But, do the best we can, education is more 
or less artificial ; and hence the child of the school 
will suffer by comparison with the child of nature, 
when she presents him in her best forms. 

In a summer ramble I met a man so dignified as 
to attract the notice and command the respect of 
all who knew him. I was with him upon the lakes 
and mountains several days and nights, and never 
for a moment did the manliness of his character 
desert him. I have seen no other person who 



252 Influence, Duties, and 

could boast such physical beauty. Accustomed to 
a hunter's life ; carrying often a pack of thirty or 
forty or fifty pounds ; sleeping upon the ground 
or a bed of boughs ; able, if necessity or interest 
demanded, to travel in the woods the ordinary dis- 
tance which a good horse would pass over upon 
our roads ; with every organ of the arm, the leg, the 
trunk, fully expressed ; with a manly, kind, intelligent 
countenance, a beard uncut, in the vigor of early 
manhood, he seemed a model which the statuaries of 
Greece and Rome desired to see, but did not. He 
had at once the bearing of a soldier and the charac- 
teristics of a gentleman. He was ignorant of gram- 
matical rules and definitions, yet his conversation 
would have been accepted in good circles of New 
England society. This man had his faults, but they 
were not grievous faults, nor did they in any manner 
affect the qualities of which I have spoken. 

This is what nature sometimes does ; this is what 
we should always strive to do, extending this sym- 
metry, if possible, to the moral as well as to the 
intellectual and physical organization. This man is 
ignorant of science, of books, of the world of letters, 
and the world of art, yet we respect him. Why ? 
Because nature has chosen to illustrate in him her 
own principles, power and beauty. 

That we may draw out the qualities of the human 



Rewards of Teachers. 253 

• 
mind as they exist, we must first appreciate our in- 
fluence upon childhood and youth. Our own expe- 
rience is the best evidence of what that influence is. 
All along our lives the lessons of childhood return to 
us. The hills and valleys, the lakes, rivers, and riv- 
ulets, of our early home, come not in clearer visions * 
before us than do the exhortations to industry, the 
incentives to progress, the lessons of learning, and 
the principles of truth, uttered and offered by the 
teachers of early years. In the same way the lines 
of the poet, the reflections of the philosopher, the 
calm truths of the historian, read once and often 
carelessly, and for many years forgotten, return as 
voices of inspiration, and are evermore with us. 

That the teacher may have influence, his ear must 
be open to the voice of truth, and his mouth must be 
liberal with words of consolation, encouragement, 
and advice. He rules in a little world, and the 
scales of justice must be balanced evenly in his 
hands. He should go in and out before his scholars 
free from partiality or prejudice ; indifferent to the 
voice of envy or detraction ; shunning evil and emu- 
lous of good ; patient of inquiries in the hours of 
duty ; filled with the spirit of industry in his moments 
of leisure ; gathering up and spreading before his pu- 
pils the choicest gems of literature, art, and science, 
22 



254 Influence, Duties, and 

that they may be early and truly inspired with the 
love of learning. 

The public school is a little world, and the teacher 
rules therein. It contains the rich and the poor, the 
virtuous and the corrupt, the studious and the in- 
different, the timid and the brave, the fearful and the 
hearts elate with hope and courage. Life is there no 
cheat ; it wears no mask, it assumes no unnatural 
positions, but presents itself as it is. Deformed and 
repulsive in some of its features, yet to him whose 
eye is as quick to discover its beauty as its deform- 
ity, its harmony as its discord, there is always a 
bright spot on which he may gaze, and a fond hope 
to which he may cling. Artificial life, whether in 
the select school or the select party, tends to weaken 
our faith in humanity ; and a want of faith in our 
race is. an omen of ill-success in life. Teachers 
should have faith in humanity, and should labor con- 
stantly to inspire others with the belief that the true 
law of our nature is the law of progress. 

Those who come early in life to the conclusion that 
•the many cannot bo moved by the higher sentiments 
and ideas which control a few favored mortals, cease 
to labor for the advancement of the race. They con- 
sequently lose their hold upon society, and society 
neglects them. For such men there can be no 
success. 



Rewards of Teachers. 255 

Others, like Jefferson and Channing, never lose 
confidence in their species, and their species never 
lose confidence in them. When the teacher comes 
to believe that the world is worse than it was, and 
never can be better, he need wait for no other evi- 
dence that his days of usefulness are over. 

The school-room will teach the child, even as the 
prison will instruct maturity and age, that few per- 
sons are vicious in the extreme, and that no one 
lives without some ennobling traits of character and 
life. The teacher's faith is the measure of the teach- 
er's usefulness. It is to him what conception is to 
the artist ; and, if the sculptor can see the image of 
grace and beauty in the fresh-quarried marble, so 
must the teacher see the full form of the coming 
man in the trembling child or awkward youth. 

The teacher ought not to grow old. To be sure, 
time will lay its hand on him, as it does on others ; 
but he should always cultivate in himself the feel- 
ings, sentiments, and even ambitions of youth. Far 
enough removed from his pupils in age and position 
to stimulate them by his example, and encourage 
them by his precepts, he should yet be so near them 
that he can appreciate the steps and struggles which 
mark their progress in the path of learning. There 
must be some points of contact, something common 
to teacher and pupils. Indeed, for us all it is true 



256 Influence, Duties, and 

that age loses nothing of its dignity or respect when 
it accepts the sentiments and sports of youth and 
childhood. But above all should the teacher remem- 
ber the common remark of La Place, in his Celestial 
Mechanics, and the observation of Dr. Bowditch 
upon it. " Whenever I meet in La Place with the 
words, ' Thus it plainly appears,' I am sure that 
hours, and perhaps days, of hard study, will alone 
enable me to discover liow it plainly appears." The 
good teacher will seek first to estimate each schol- 
ar's capacity, and then adapt his instructions accord- 
ingly. Though he may be far removed from his 
pupils in attainments, he should be able to mark the 
steps by which ordinary minds pass from common 
principles to their noblest application. 

This observation may by some be deemed unnec- 
essary ; but there are living teachers who, having 
mastered the noblest sciences, are unable to appre- 
ciate and lead ordinary minds. 

The teacher must be in earnest. This is the price 
of success in every profession. The law, it is said, 
is a jealous mistress, and permits no rivals ; the 
indifferent, careless minister is but a blind leader 
of the blind, and the ''undevout astronomer is 
mad.'' 

Sincerity of soul and earnestness of purpose will 
achieve success. According to an eminent author- 



Rewards of Teachers. 257 

ity, there are three kinds of great men : those who are 
born great, those who achieve greatness, and those 
who have greatness thrust upon them. If we take 
greatness of birth to be in greatness of soul and 
intellect, and not in the mere accident of ancestry, it 
is such only who have greatness thrust upon them ; 
for the world, after all, rarely makes a mistake in this 
respect. But there is a larger and a nobler class, 
whose greatness, whatever it is, must be achieved ; 
and to this class I address myself. 

Success is practicable. There need be no failures. 
A man of reflection will soon find whether he can 
succeed in his pursuit ; if not, he has mistaken his 
calling, or neglected the proper means of success. 
In either case, a remedy is at hand. If a teacher is 
indifferent to his calling, and cannot bring himself to 
pursue it with ardor, it is a duty to himself, to his 
profession, to his pupils, to abandon it at once. It 
is idle to suppose that we are doing good in a work 
to which we are not attracted by our sympathies, and 
in which we are not sustained by our faith and hopes. 
The men who succeed are the men who believe that 
they can succeed. The men who fail are those to 
whom success would have been a surprise. There is 
no doubt some appropriate pursuit in life for every 
man of ordinary talents ; but no one can tell whether 
he has found it for himself until he has made a vig- 
22* 



258 Influence, Duties, and 

orous and persistent application of his powers. If 
the teacher fail to do this, he need not seek for 
success in another profession, when he has already 
declined to pay its price. 

The choice of a profession is one of the great acts 
of life. It should not be done hastily, nor without a 
careful examination and just appreciation of the ele- 
ments of character. A competent teacher may aid 
his pupils in this respect, A mistake in occupation 
is a calamity to the individual, and an injury to the 
public. Our school-rooms contain artists, farmers, 
mathematicians, mechanics, poets, lawyers, states- 
men, orators, and warriors ; but some one must do 
for them what Shakspeare says the monarch of the 
hive has done for all his subjects — assigned them 

" Officers of sorts ; 
"Where some, like magistrates, correct at home ; 
Others, like merchants, venture trade abroad ; 
Others, like soldiers, armed in their stings, 
Make boot upon the summer's velvet buds ; 
Which pillage, they with merry march bring home 
To the tent-royal of their emperor ; 
Who, busied in his majesty, surveys 
The singing masons, building roofs of gold ; 
The civil citizens kneading up the honey ; 
The poor mechanic porters crowding in 
Their heavy burdens at his narrow gate ; 
The sad-eyed justice, with his surly hum. 



Rewards of Teachers. 259 

Delivering o'er to executors pale 
The lazy, yawning drone." 

Teachers are so situated that they may give 
wholesome advice ; while parents — and I say it 
with respect -^ are quite likely, under the influence 
of an instinctive belief that their children are fitted 
for any place within the range of human labor or 
human ambition, to make fatal mistakes. While all 
pursuits and professions, if honest, are equally hon- 
orable, the individual selection must be determined 
by taste, circumstances, individual habits, and often 
by physical facts. It is not for one person to do 
everything, but it is for each person to do at least 
one thing well. As a general rule, the painter, who 
has spent his youth and manhood in studying the 
canvas, had better not study the stars ; and the 
artist, who has power to bring the form of life from 
the cold marble, has no right to solve problems 
in geometry, weigh planets, or calculate eclipses. 
The proper choice of the business of life may do 
much to perfect our social system, and it will cer- 
tainly advance our material prosperity. There is 
everywhere in our civilization mutual dependence, 
and there must be mutual support. In no other 
wa}'' can we advance to our destiny as becomes an 
enlightened people. 



260 Influence, Duties, and 

But all of life and education, either to pupil, 
teacher, or man, is not to be found in the school- 
room. The common period of school-life is sufficient 
only for elementary education. The average school- 
going period is ten years. Of this, one-half is spent in 
vacations and absences, so that each child has about 
five years of school-life. Only one-fourth of. each 
day is spent in the school-room ; and the continuous 
attendance, therefore, is about fifteen months, equal 
to the time which most of us give to sleep, every 
four or five years of our existence. This view leads 
me to say again that it is the duty of the teacher in 
this brief period to lay a good foundation for subse- 
quent scientific and classical culture. More than 
this cannot be accomplished ; and, where this is 
accomplished, and a taste for learning is formed, 
and the means to be employed are comprehended, a 
satisfactory school-life has been passed. 

Education — universal education — is a necessity; 
and, as there is no royal road to learning, so there is 
no aristocracy of mental power depending upon 
social or pecuniary distinctions. The New England 
colonies, and Massachusetts first of all, established 
the system of education now called universal or 
public. It was not then easy to comprehend the 
principle which lies at the foundation of a system of 
public instruction. We are first to consider that a 



Rewards of Teachers. 261 

system of public instruction implies a system of uni- 
versal taxation. The onty rule on which taxes can 
be levied justly is that the object sought is of public 
necessity, or manifest public convenience. It quite 
often happens that men of our own generation are 
insensible or indifferent to the true relation of the 
citizen to the cause of education. Some seem to 
imagine that their interest in schools, and of course 
their moral obligation to support them, ceases with 
the education of their own children. This is a great 
error. The public has no right to levy a tax for the 
education of any particular child, or family of chil- 
dren ; but its right of taxation commences when the 
education or plan of education is universal, and 
ceases whenever the plan is limited, or the opera- 
tions of the system are circumscribed. 

No man can be taxed properly because he has 
children of his own to educate ; this may be a reason 
with some for cheerful payment, but it has in itself 
no element of a just principle. When, however, the 
people decide that education is a matter of public 
concern, then taxation for its promotion rests upon 
the same foundation as the most important depart- 
ments of a government. Yet, many generations of 
men came and passed away before the doctrine was 
received that, as a public matter, a man is equally 
interested in the education of his neighbor's children 



262 Influence, Duties, and 

as in the education of bis own. As parents, we have 
a special interest in our children ; as citizens, it is 
this, that they may be honest, industrious, and 
effective in their labors. This interest we have in 
all children. 

The safety of our persons and property demands 
their honesty ; our right to be exempt from pauper 
and criminal taxes requires habits of universal indus- 
try ; and our part in the general wealth and pros- 
perity is increased by the intelligent application of 
manual labor in all the walks of life. 

A man may, indeed, be proud of the attainments 
of his family, as men are often proud of their ances- 
try; yet they possess little real value as a family 
possession. The pride of ancestry has no value ; it 

*' Is like a circle in the water. 
Which never ceaseth to enlarge itself 
Till, by broad-spreading, it disperse to naught.'* 

I pass from this digression to the statement that 
the chief means of self-improvement are five : Ob- 
servation, Conversation, Reading, Memory, and Re- 
flection. 

It is an art to observe well — to go through the 
world with our eyes open — to see what is before us. 
All men do not see alike, nor see the same things. 
Our powers of observation take on the hues of daily 



Rewards of Teachers. 263 

life. The artist, in a strange city or foreign land, 
observes only the specimens of taste and beauty or 
their opposites ; the mechanic studies anew the prin- 
ciples of his science as applied to the purposes of 
life ; the architect transfers to his own mind the 
images of churches, cathedrals, temples, and pal- 
aces ; while the philanthropist rejoices in cellars and 
lanes, that he may know how poverty and miser}'' 
change the face and heart of man. 

An American artist, following the lead of Mr. 
Jeiferson, has beautifully illustrated the nature of 
the power of observation. We do not see even the 
faces of our common friends alike. The stranger 
observes a family likeness which is invisible to the 
familiar acquaintance. The former sees only the few 
points of agreement, and decides upon them ; while 
the latter has observed and studied the more numer- 
ous points of difference, until he is blind to all others. 
Hence a portrait may appear true to a stranger, 
which, to an intimate acquaintance, is barren in ex- 
pression, and destitute of character. Therefore, the 
artist wisely and properly esteemed himself success- 
ful when his work was approved by the wife or the 
mother. The world around us is full of knowledge. 
We should so behold it as to be instructed by all that 
is. The distant star paints its image on our eye with 
a ray of light sent forth thousands of years ago ; yet 



264 Influence, Duties, and 

its lessou ^s not of itself, but of the universe and its 
mysteries, and of the Creator out of whose divine 
hand all things have come. 

Conversation is at once an art, an accomplish- 
ment, and a science. It leads to valuable practical 
results. It has a place, and by no means an inferior 
place, in the schools. Facts stated, questions pro- 
posed, or theories illustrated, in conversation, are 
permanently impressed upon the mind. It is in the 
power of the teacher to communicate much informa- 
tion in this way, and it is in the power of us all to 
make conversation a means of improvement. 

But, when the pupil leaves the school, reading, so 
systematic and thorough as to be called study, is, no 
doubt, the best culture he can enjoy. In the first 
place, books are accessible to all, and they may be 
had at all times. They can be used in moments of 
leisure, in solitude, in the hours when sleep is too 
proud to wait on us, and when friends are absent or 
indifferent to our lot. Conversation may be patroniz- 
ing, or it may leave us a debtor ; when the book- 
seller's bill is settled, we have no account with the 
author. 

If I am permitted to speak to all, pupils as well as 
teachers, I am inclined to say, "Do not consider 
your education finished when you leave home and 
the school. '^ Your labors of a practical sort ought 



Rewards of Teachers. 265 

then to commence. With system and care, you may 
read works of literature and history, or devote your- 
self to mathematics in the higher departments of 
science. As a general thing, however, it is not wise 
to attempt too much at once. The custom of the 
schools is to require each pupil to attend to several 
branches at the same time ; but this course cannot be 
recommended to adult persons with disciplined minds. 
It seems better to select one subject, and make it 
the leading topic, for a time, of our studies and 
thoughts. It may also be proper to suggest that 
works of fiction, poetry, and romance, ought not to 
be read until the mind is well disciplined, and a good 
foundation of solid learning is laid. Such works 
tend to make one's style of thought and writing 
easy, flowing, and agreeable ; but they are also cal- 
culated to make us dissatisfied with the more sub- 
stantial labors of intellectual life. Having obtained 
the elements of learning, one thing is absolutely 
essential — system in study. I fancy that there are 
two prevalent errors among us. First, that men 
often attain intellectual eminence without study ; 
and, secondly, that exclusive devotion to books is 
the price of success. Whoever neglects study, 
whatever his natural abilities, will find himself dis- 
tanced by inferior men ; and, on the other hand, 
whoever will devote three hours each day to the 
23 



266 Influence, Duties, and 

systematic improvement of his mind will finally be 
numbered among the leading persons of the age. 
But, while we observe, converse, and read, the 
power of memory and the habit of reflection should 
be cultivated. The habit of reflection is a great aid 
to the memory, and together they enable us to use 
the knowledge we daily acquire. 

No previous age of the world has offered so great 
encouragement, whether in fame or money, to men 
of science and literature, as the present. Formerly, 
authors flourished under the patronage of princes, or 
withered by their neglect ; but now they are encour- 
aged and paid by the people, and reap where they 
have sown, whether kings will or not. The poverty 
of authors was once proverbial ; but now the only 
authors who are poor are poor authors. Good learn- 
ing, integrity, and ability, are well compensated in 
all the professions. Some one remarked to Mr. Web- 
ster, "That the profession of the law was crowded.'' 
— '' Yes,'' said he, " rather crowded below, but there 
is plenty of room above." Littleness and medioc- 
rity always seek the paths worn by superior men ; 
and the truly illustrious in literature and science are 
few in number compared with those who attempt to 
tread in the footsteps of their illustrious predeces- 
sors ; but none of these things ought to deter young 
men of ability, industry, and integrity, from boldly 



Rewards of Teachers. 267 

entering the lists, without fear of failure. The world 
is usually just, and it will ultimately award the to- 
kens of its approbation to those who deserve success. 

And there is a happy peculiarity in talent, — the 
variety is so great that the competition is small. Of 
all the living authors, are there two so alike that they 
can be considered competitors or rivals ? The nation 
has applauded and set the seal of its approbation 
upon the eloquence of Henry, Otis, Adams, Ames, 
Pinckney, Wirt, Calhoun, Clay, and Webster, not 
because these men resembled one another, but be- 
cause each had peculiarities and excellences of his 
own. The same variety of excellence is seen in liv- 
ing orators, and in all the eloquence and learning 
of antiquity which time has spared and history has 
transmitted to us. It is said that when Aristides 
wrote the sentence of his own banishment for a hum- 
ble and unknown enemy, the only reason given by 
the peasant was that he was "tired with hearing 
him called the Just." And the world sometimes 
appears to be restive under the influence of men of 
talent ; but that influence, whether always agreeable 
or not, is both permanent and beneficial. 

Not only does each generation respect its own 
leading minds, but it is submissive to the learning 
and intellect of other days. The influence of ancient 
Greece still remains. We copy her architecture; bor- 



268 Influence, Duties, and 

row from her philosophy, admire her poetry, and bow 
with humility before the remnants of her majestic 
literature. So the policy of Rome is perceptible in 
the civilization of every European country, and it is 
a potent element in the laws and jurisprudence of 
America. The eloquence of Demosthenes has been 
impressed upon every succeeding generation of civ- 
ilized men ; the genius of Hannibal has stimulated 
the ambition of warriors from his own time to that 
of Napoleon ; while Shakspeare's power has been 
the wonder of all modern authors and readers. It 
is a great representative fact in mental philosophy, 
which we cannot too much contemplate, that Demos- 
thenes and Cicero not only enchained the thousands 
of Greece and Rome in whose presence they stood, 
but that their eloquence has had a controlling influ- 
ence over myriads to whom the language in which 
they spoke was unknown. The words that the 
houseless Homer sung in the streets of Smyrna 
have commanded the admiration of all later times ; 
and even the mud walls around Plato's garden, on 
which are preserved the fragments of statuary with 
which the garden was once adorned, attract and 
instruct the wanderers and students about Athens. 

But let us not deceive ourselves with the idea that 
we can illustrate anew the greatness which has dis- 
tinguished a few men only in all the long centuries 



Rewards of Teachers. 269 

of the world's existence. Be not imitators nor fol- 
lowers of other men's glory. There is a path for 
each one, and his duty lies therein. Yet the lead- 
ing men of the world are lights which ought not to 
be hid from the young, for they serve to show the 
extent of the field in which human powers may be 
employed. The rule of the successful life is to neg- 
lect no present opportunity of good either to yourself 
or to others ; and the rule of the successful student 
is to gather information from whatever source he 
may, not doubting that it will prove useful to him- 
self or to his fellow-men. 

Our own age has furnished two men, — one living, 
the other dead, — quite opposite in talents and at- 
tainments, whose power and influence may not have 
been surpassed in ancient or modern times. I speak 
of Kossuth and Webster. Our history has no par- 
allel for the first. Most men, young or old, gay 
or severe, radical or conservative, were touched by 
his mournful strains, and influenced by his magic 
words. He came from a land of which we knew lit- 
tle, and so laid open the history of its wrongs that 
he enlisted multitudes in its behalf I speak not 
now of the views he presented, nor of the demands 
he made upon the American people. If he taught 
error and asked wrong, so the more wonderful was 
his career. No doubt his cause did much for him ; 
23* 



270 Influence, Duties, and 

but other patriots and exiles have had equal oppor- 
tunities with Kossuth, yet no one has so swaj^ed the 
public mind. 

He was distinguished in intellect, a master of much 
learning, a man of nice moral feeling and strong re- 
ligious sentiments, all of which were combined and 
blended in his addresses to the people. But he 
spoke a language whose rudiments he first learned 
in manhood. In his speech he neglected the chief 
rule of Grecian eloquence. With one theme, only, — 
the wrongs of Hungary ; with one object, only, — 
her relief and elevation, — he commanded the gen- 
eral attention of the American mind. The mission 
of Kossuth in America deserves to be remembered 
as an intellectual phenomenon, whose like, we of 
this generation may not again see. 

Mr. Webster had never great personal popularity. 
His presence was majestic, but forbidding. His man- 
ners were agreeable, and sometimes fascinating to 
his friends, when he was in a genial mood ; but he 
was often reserved or even austere to strangers, and 
terrible to his enemies. His style of thought was 
mathematical, his language expressive, but never 
popular. He wrote as a man would dictate an essay 
which was to appear as a posthumous work. His 
eloquence was not that which often passes for elo- 
quence upon the stump or at the bar. He seldom 



Rewards of Teachers. 271 

attempted to court the people, and when he did, it 
was as if he mocked himself, and scorned the spirit 
which could be moved by the breezes of popular 
favor. He was not free from faults, personal and 
political ; yet he acquired a control which has not 
been possessed by any man since Washington. 
Whenever he was to speak, the public were anxious 
to hear and to read. Hardly any man has had the 
fortune to present his views in addresses, letters, and 
speeches, to so large a portion of his countrymen ; 
yet the people whom he addressed, and who were 
anxious for his words and opinions, did not always, 
or even generally, agree with liim. Mr. Webster's 
power was chiefly, if not solely, intellectual. He 
had not the personal qualities of Mr. Clay or Gen- 
eral Jackson ; he was not, like Mr. Jefferson, the 
chosen exponent of a political creed, and the admit- 
ted leader of a great political party ; nor had he 
the military character and universally acknowledged 
patriotism of General Washington, which made him 
first in the hearts of his countrymen. Mr. Webster 
stands alone. His domain is the intellect, and thus 
far in America he is without a rival. To Mr. Web- 
ster, and to all men proportionately, according to 
the measure of their gifts and attainments, we may 
apply his great words : "A superior and command- 
ing human intellect, a truly great man, when Heaven 



272 Influence, Duties, and 

vouchsafes so rare a gift, is not a temporary flame, 
burning brightly for a while, and then giving place 
to returning darkness. It is rather a spark of fer- 
vent heat, as well as radiant light, with power to 
enkindle the common mass of human mind ; so that, 
when it glimmers in its own decay, and finally goes 
out in death, no night follows, but it leaves the 
world all light, all on fire, from the potent contact 
of its own spirit. '^ 

Some humble measure of this greatness may be 
attained by all ; and, if I have sought to lead you 
in the way of improvement by considerations too 
purely personal and selfish, I will implore you, in 
conclusion, as teachers and as citizens, to consider 
yourselves as the servants of your country and your 
race. There can be no real greatness of mind with- 
out generosity of soul. If a superior human intel- 
lect seems to be specially the gift of God, how is he 
wanting in true religion who fails to dedicate it to 
humanity, justice, and virtue ! 

An eminent historian, seeing at one view, and as 
in the present moment, the fall of great states, 
ancient and modern, and anticipating a like fate for 
his own beloved land, has predicted that in two centu- 
ries there will be three hundred millions of people in 
North America speaking the language of England, 
reading its authors, and glorying in their descent. 



Rewards of Teachers. 273 

If this be so, what limits can we assign to the work, 
or how estimate the duty, of those intrusted with 
the education of the young ? 

Who can say what share of responsibility for the 
future of America is upon the teachers of the land ? 



LIBERTY AND LEARNING. 

[An Address delivered at Montague, July 4th, 1857.] 

I CONGRATULATE jou upon the auspicious moments 
of this, the eighty-first anniversary of our National 
Independence ; and its return, now and ever, should 
be the occasion of gratitude to the Author of all 
good, that He hath vouchsafed to our fathers and to 
their descendants the wisdom to establish and the 
wisdom to preserve the institutions of Liberty in 
America. 

And I congratulate you that you accept this anni- 
versary as the occasion for considering the sub- 
ject of education. Ignorant and blind worshippers 
of Liberty can do but little for its support ; but, 
whatever of change or decay may come to our insti- 
tutions. Liberty itself can never die in the presence 
of a people universally and thoroughly educated. 
It is not, then, inappropriate nor unphilosophical for 
us to connect Education and Liberty together ; and 
I therefore propose, after presenting some thoughts 
upon the Declaration of Independence, and its rela- 
tions to the American Union, to consider the value 

(274) 



Liberty and Learning. 275 

of political learning, its neglect, and the means by 
which it may be promoted. 

The events and epochs of life are logical in their 
nature, and are harmonious or inharmonious as the 
affairs of men are controlled by principle, policy, 
or accident. Humboldt, Maury, and Gu^^ot, Arago, 
Agassiz, and Pierce, by observation, philosophy, and 
mathematics, demonstrate the harmony of the physi- 
cal creation. In the microscopic animalculee ; in the 
gigantic remains, whether vegetable or animal, of 
other ages and conditions of life ; in the coral reef 
and the mountain range ; in the hill-side rivulet that 
makes " the meadows green ; '^ in the ocean current 
that bathes and vivifies a continent ; in the setting 
of the leaf upon its stem, and the moving of Uranus 
in its orbit, they trace a law whose harmony is its 
glory, and whose mystery is the evidence of its 
divinity. 

National changes, the movements and progress of 
the human race, as a whole and in its parts, are obe- 
dient, likewise, to law ; and are, therefore, logical in 
their character, though generally lacking in precision 
of connection and order of succession. Or it may 
be, rather, that we lack power to trace the connection 
between events that depend in part, at least, upon 
the prejudices, passions, vices, and weaknesses, of 
men. The development of the logic of human affairs 



276 Liberty and Learning. 

waits for a philosopher who shall study and compre- 
hend the liviog millions of our race, as the philoso- 
phers now study and comprehend the subjects of 
physical science. We have no guaranty that this 
can ever be done. As mind is above matter, the 
mental philosopher enters upon the most varied and 
difficult field of labor. 

Keeping this fact in mind, it appears to be true 
that every person of observation, reading, and re- 
flection, is something of a mental philosopher, though 
much the larger number have no knowledge of physi- 
cal science. And especially must the student of 
history have a system of mental philosophy ; but 
often, no doubt, his system is too crude for general 
notice. Every historian connects the events of his 
narrative by some thread of philosophy or specula- 
tion ; every reader observes some connection, though 
he may never develop it to himself, between the 
events and changes of national and ethnological 
life ; and even the observer whose vision is limited 
by his own horizon in time and space marks a de- 
pendence, and speaks of cause and effect. All this 
follows from the existence and nature of man. Man 
is not inert, nor even passive, merely ; and his activ- 
ity will continually organize itself into facts and 
forms, ever changing in character, it may be, yet 



Liberty and Learning. 277 

subject to a law as wise and fixed as that of plan- 
etary motion. 

The Independence of the British Colonies in Amer- 
ica, declared on the 4th of July, 1176, is not an 
isolated fact ; nor is the Declaration itself a hasty 
and overwrought production of a young and enthusi- 
astic adventurer in the cause of liberty. 

The passions and the reason of men connected the 
Declaration of Independence with the massacre in 
King-street, of March 5th, 1Y70 ; with the passage 
and repeal of the Stamp Act ; with the attempt to 
enforce the AVrits of Assistance ; with the act to 
close the port of Boston ; with the peace of lt63 ; 
with the Act of Settlement of 1688 ; with the execu- 
tion of Charles I., and the Protectorate of Cromwell ; 
with the death of Hampden ; with the confederation 
of 1643 ; with the royal charters granted to the re- 
spective colonies ; with the compact made on board 
the Mayflower ; and, finally, and distinctly, and 
chiefly, — as the basis of the greatest legal argument 
of modern times, made by the Massachusetts House 
of Representatives, from 1765 to 1775, — with the 
events at Runnymede, and the grant of the Great 
Charter to the nobles and people of England in 1215, 
which is itself based upon the concessions of Edward 
the Confessor, and the affirmation of the Saxon laws 
in the eleventh century. Our Independence is, then, 
24 



278 Liberty and Learning. 

one logical fact or event in a long succession, to the 
enumeration of which we may yet add the confeder- 
ation of 1718, the constitution of 1181, the French 
Revolution of 1189, the rapid increase of American 
territory and States, the revolutionary spirit of con- 
tinental Europe, the reforms in the British govern- 
ment at home, the wise modifications of its colo- 
nial policy, and for us a long career of prosperity 
based upon the cardinal doctrine of the equality of 
all men before the law. 

Nor can any reader of the Declaration itself as- 
sume that it contains one statement, proposition, 
idea, or word, not carefully considered, and care- 
fully expressed. It was not the production of hasty, 
thoughtless, or reckless men. The country had been 
gradually prepared for the great event. States, 
counties, and towns, had made the most distinct 
expressions of opinion upon the relations of the col- 
onies to the mother country. On the 1th of June, 
1116, Richard Henry Lee, of Virginia, moved, in the 
Congress of the United Colonies, a resolution declar- 
ing. That these United Colonies are, and of right 
ought to be, free and independent states ; that they 
are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown, 
and that all poHtical connection between them and 
the state of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally 
dissolved. The subject was considered on the tenth ; 



Liberty and Learning. 279 

and, on the eleventh instant, the committee, consist' 
ing of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Dr. Franklin, 
Eoger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston, was ap- 
pointed. On the twenty-fifth of June, a Declaration 
of the Deputies of Pennsylvania, in favor of Inde- 
pendence, was read. On the twenty-eighth, the cre- 
dentials of the delegates from New Jersey, in which 
they were instructed to favor Independence, were 
presented ; and on the first of July similar instruc- 
tions to the Maryland delegates were laid before 
Congress. At this time Congress proceeded to con- 
sider the Declaration and resolution reported by the 
committee. The Declaration was carefully consid- 
ered, and materially amended in committee of the 
whole, on the first, second, third, and fourth, when 
it was finally adopted. It was then signed by the 
president and secretary, and copies were transmit- 
ted to the several colonies. The order for its en- 
grossment, and for the signature by every member, 
was not passed until the nineteenth of July, and it 
was not really signed until the second of August 
following. It is not likely, considering the circum- 
stances, and the known character of the members of 
Congress, among whom may be mentioned John 
Hancock, Samuel Adams, Benjamin Rush, Robert 
Morris, Benjamin Harrison, Elbridge Gerry, John 
Witherspoon, a descendant of John Knox, the Scot- 



280 Liberty and Learning. 

tisli Eeformer, Charles Carroll, and Samuel Hunting- 
ton, — all distinguished for coolness, probity, and 
patriotism, — that the immortal document can contain 
one thought or word unworthy its sacred associa- 
tions, and the character of the American people ! 

And it is among the alarming symptoms of pub- 
lic sentiment that the Declaration of Independence 
is by some publicly condemned, and by others quietly 
accepted as entitled to just the consideration, and no 
more, that is given to an excited advocate's speech 
to a jury, or a demagogue's electioneering harangue, 
or the daily contribution of the partisan editor to 
the stock of political capital that aids the election 
of his favorite candidates. And upon this evidence 
is the nation and the world to be taught that but 
little was meant by the assertions, "that all men 
are created equal ; that they are endowed by their 
Creator with certain inalienable rights ; that among 
these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happi- 
ness ; that, to secure these rights, governments are 
instituted among men, deriving their just powers 
from the consent of the governed " ? Would it 
not be wiser to test the government we have, by a 
statesmanlike application of the principles of the 
Declaration of Independence in the management of 
public affairs ? 

The Union is connected with the Declaration of 



Liberty and Learning. 281 

Independence. The Union is an institution : the 
Declaration of Independence is an assertion of rights, 
and an exposition of principles. When principles 
are disregarded, institutions do not, for any con- 
siderable time, retain their original value. And it 
would be the folly of other nations, without excuse 
in us, were we to worship blindly any institution, 
whatever its origin or its history. I do not, myself, 
doubt the value of the American Union. It was 
the necessity of the time when it was formed ; 
it is the necessity of the present moment ; it was, 
indeed, the claim of our whole colonial life, and its 
recognition could be postponed no longer when the 
colonies crossed the threshold of national existence. 

The colonies had carried on a correspondence 
among themselves upon important matters ; the New 
England settlements formed a confederation in 1643, 
that was the prototype of the present Union ; and 
the convention at Albany, in 1154, considered in 
connection with various resolutions and declara- 
tions, indicated a growing desire " to form a more 
perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tran- 
quillity, provide for the common defence, promote 
the general welfare, and secure the blessings of 
liberty " to the successive generations that should 
occupy the American continent. 

For these exalted purposes the Constitution was 
24* 



282 Liberty and Learning. 

framed, and the Union established ; and the Consti- 
tution and the Union will remain as long as these 
exalted purposes, with any considerable share of 
fidelity, are secured. The Union will not be de- 
stroyed by declamation, nor can declamation pre- 
serve it. Words have power only when they awaken 
a response in the minds of those who listen. The 
Union will be judged, finally, by its merits ; and they 
are not powerful enemies for evil who attack it 
through the press and from the rostrum ; but rather 
they who, clothed with authority, brief or permanent, 
interpret the constitution so as to defeat the end for 
which it was framed. Nor are they the best friends 
of the Union who lavishly bestow upon it nicely- 
wrought encomiums, as though the gilding of rhet- 
oric and the ornament of praise could shield a human 
institution from the judgment of a free people ; but 
rather they who, under Heaven, and in the presence 
of men, seek to so interpret the constitution as, in 
the language and in the order of its preamble, "to 
form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure 
domestic tranquillity, provide for the common de- 
fence, promote the general welfare, and secure the 
blessings of liberty" to themselves and their pos- 
terity. Words are powerless, and enemies — envi- 
ous, jealous, or deluded — are powerless, when they 
war upon a system of government that secures such 



Liberty and Learning. 283 

exalted results. And, if in these later days of our 
national existence patriotism has been weakened, 
respect and reverence for the constitution and the 
Union have been diminished, it is because the actual 
government under the constitution has, in the judg- 
ment of many, failed to realize the government of the 
constitution. 

But let no one despair of the Republic. Men are 
now building better than they know ; possibly, bet- 
ter than they wish. A great government, powerful 
in its justice, and therefore to be respected and 
maintained, must also be powerful in its errors, prej- 
udices, and wrongs, and therefore to be changed 
and reformed in these respects. The declaration 
" that all men are created equal '' is vital, and will 
live in the presence of all governments, strong as 
well as weak, hostile as well as friendly. It has no 
respect for worldly authority, so evidently is it a 
direct emanation of the Divine Mind, and so does it 
harmonize with the highest manifestations of the 
nature of man. But the Declaration of Independ- 
ence does not, in this particular, assert that all men 
are created equal in height or weight, equal in phj^'s- 
ical strength, intellectual power, or moral worth. 
It is not dealing with these qualities at all, but with 
the natural political rights and relations of men. In 
its view, all are born free from any political subordi- 



284 Liberty and Learning. 

nation to others on account of the accidents or inci- 
dents of family or historic name. And hence it fol- 
lows that no man, by birth or nature, has any right 
in political affairs to control his fellow-man ; and 
hence it follows further, as there is neither subjec- 
tion anywhere nor authority anywhere, that all men 
are created equal, that governments derive their 
"just powers from the consent of the governed. '' 
And hence it must, ere long, be demonstrated by 
this country, under the light of Christianity, and in 
the presence of the world, that man cannot have 
property in his fellow-man. 

And, again, let no one despair of the Kepublic or 
of the Union ; nor let any, with rash confidence, be- 
lieve that they are indestructible. They are human 
institutions built up through great sacrifices, and by 
the exercise of a high order of worldly wisdom. 
But the government is not an end — it is a means. 
The end is Liberty regulated by law ; and the means 
will exist as long as the end thereof is attained. 
But, should the time ever come when the institutions 
of the country fail to secure the blessings of liberty 
to the living generation, and hold out no promise of 
better things in the future, I know not that these 
institutions could longer exist, or that they ought 
longer to exist. To be sure, the horizon is not 
always distinctly seen. The sky is not always 



Liberty and Learning. 285 

clear ; there are dark spots upon the disk of Liberty, 
as upon the sun in the heavens ; but, like the sun, 
its presence is for all. And, whether there be night, 
or clouds, or distance, its blessings can never be 
wholly withdrawn from the human race. 

It is not to be concealed, however, that the affec- 
tions of the people have been alienated from the 
American Union during the last seven years, as they 
were from the union with Great Britain during the 
years of our colonial life immediately previous to the 
Massacre in King-street, in 1770. This solemn per- 
sonal and public experience is fraught with a great 
lesson. It should teach those who are intrusted 
with the administration of public affairs to translate 
the language of the constitution into the stern reali- 
ties of public policy, in the light of the Declaration 
of Independence, and of Liberty ; and it should warn 
those who constitute the government, and who judge 
it, not to allow their opposition to men or to meas- 
ures to degenerate into indifference or hostility to 
the institutions of the country. 

A little distrust of ourselves, who see not beyond 
our own horizon, might sometimes lend charity to 
our judgment, and discretion to our opposition ; for, 
in the turmoil of politics, and the contests of states- 
manship, even, it is not always 



286 Liberty and Learning. 

" the sea that sinks and shelves. 

But ourselves, 
That rock and rise 

With endless and uneasy motion, 
Now touching the very skies, 

Now sinking into the depths of ocean. ' ' 

And, as there must be in every society of men 
something of evil that can be traced to the govern- 
ment, and something of good neglected that a wise 
and efficient government might have accomplished, 
it is easy to build up an argument against an exist- 
ing government, however good when compared with 
others. This is a narrow, superficial, unsatisfactory, 
dangerous view to take of public affairs. 

We should seek to comprehend the relations of 
the government, the principles on which it is founded ; 
and, while we justly complain of its defects, and seek 
to remedy them, we ought also to compare it with 
other systems that exist, or that might be estab- 
lished. This proposition involves an intelligent 
realization by the people of the character of their 
institutions ; and I am thus led to express the appre- 
hension that the popular political education of our 
day is inferior to that of the revolutionary era, and 
of the age that immediately succe6ded it. 

There is, no doubt, a disposition and a tendency 
to extol the recent past. The recollections of child- 
hood are quite at variance with the real truth, and 



Liberty and Learning. 287 

tradition is often the dream of old age concerning 
the events of early life. As rivers, hills, mountains, 
roads, and towns, are all magnified by the visions 
of childhood, it is not strange that men should be 
also. Hence comes, in part, the popular belief in 
the superior physical strength and greater longevity 
of the people who lived fifty or a hundred years ago. 
Each generation is familiar with its predecessor ; 
but of the one next remote it knows only the 
marked characters. Those who possessed great 
physical excellences remain ; but they are not so 
much the representatives of their generation as its 
exceptions. The weak, the diseased, have fallen by 
the way ; and, as there is an intimate connection 
between physical and intellectual power, the rem- 
nant of any generation, whatever its common char- 
acter, will retain a disproportionate number of strong- 
minded men. Hence it is not safe to judge a gen- 
eration as a whole by those who remain at the age 
of sixty or seventy years ; especially if we reflect 
that public opinion and tradition are most likely to 
preserve the names and qualities of those who were 
distinguished for physical or mental power. Yet, 
after making due allowance for these exaggerations, 
I cannot escape the conclusion that we have, as a 
people, deteriorated in average sound political learn- 
ing ; and I proceed to mention some of the causes 



288 Liberty and Learning. 

and evidences of our degeneracy, and of the superi- 
ority of our ancestors. 

I. The political condition of the country has been 
essentially changed. — General personal and family 
comfort, according to the ideas now entertained, was 
not a feature of American society for one hundred 
and seventy years from the settlement at Plymouth. 
Life was a continual contest — a contest with the 
forest, with the climate, with the Indians, and espe- 
cially was* it a continual contest with the mother 
country. The colonists sought to maintain their 
own rights without infringement, while they ac- 
corded to the sovereign his constitutional privileges. 
Conflicts were frequent, and apprehensions of con- 
flict yet more frequent. Hence those who had the 
conduct of public affairs were compelled to give 
some attention to English history, and to the con- 
stitutional law of Great Britain. Moreover, it was 
always important to secure and keep a strong public 
sentiment on the side of liberty ; and there were 
usually in every town men who thoroughly investi- 
gated questions of public policy. There was one 
topic, more absorbing than any other, that involved 
the study of the legal history and usage of Great 
Britain, and a careful consideration of the general 
principles of liberty ; namely, the constitutional 
rights of a British subject. Here was a broad field 



Liberty and Learning. 289 

for inquiry, investigation, and study ; and it was 
faithfully cultivated and gleaned. There has never 
been a political topic for public discussion in Amer- 
ica more important in itself, or better calculated to 
educate an American in a knowledge of his political 
rights, than the examination of the political relations 
of the subject to the crown and parliament of Great 
Britain previous to the Declaration of Independence. 
It was not an abstraction. It had a practical value 
to every man in the colonies, and it was the promi- 
nent feature of the masterly exposition made by the 
Massachusetts House of Representatives, to which I 
have already referred. And we can better estimate 
the political education which the times furnished, 
when we consider that the revolutionary war was 
made logical and necessary through a knowledge of 
positions, facts, and arguments, scattered over the 
history of the colonies. But, when our Independ- 
ence had been established and recognized, consti- 
tutions had been framed, and the governments of the 
states and nation set in motion, the beauty and har- 
mony of our political system seemed to render con- 
tinued attention to political principles and the rights 
of individual men unnecessary. Hence, we may an- 
ticipate the judgment of impartial history in the 
admission that public attention was gradually given 
to contests for oflSce which did not always involve 
25 



290 Liberty and Learning. 

the maintenance of a fundamental principle of gov- 
ernment, or the recognition of an essential human 
right. It does not, however, follow, from this admis- 
sion, that we are indifferent to our political lot, — 
occasional contests upon principle refute such a con- 
jecture, — but that men are not anxious concerning 
those things which appear to be secure. And the dif- 
ferences of political parties of the last fifty years have 
not been so much concerning the nature of human 
rights, as in regard to the institutions by which 
those rights can be best protected. Therefore our 
political questions have been questions of expedi- 
ency rather than of principle. And, if there is any 
foundation for the popular impression that public 
offices are conferred on men less eminently qualified 
to give dignity to public employments, the reason of 
this degeneracy — less noteworthy than it is usually 
represented — is to be found in this connection. 

Governments and political organizations accept 
the common law of society. When an individual 
or a corporation is prosperous, places of trust and 
emolument are often gained and occupied by unwor- 
thy men ; but, when profits are diminished, or when 
they disappear entirely ; when dividends are passed, 
when loss and bankruptcy are imminent, then, if hope 
and courage still remain, places of importance are 
filled by the appointment of abler and worthier men. 



Liberty and Learning. 291 

The charge made against official character, to what- 
ever extent true, is better evidence of confidence 
and prosperity than it is of the degeneracy of the 
people ; and a public exigency, serious and long- 
continued, would call to posts of responsibility the 
highest talent and integrity which the country could 
produce. But it is, nevertheless, to be admitted as 
a necessary consequence of the facts already stated, 
and the views presented, that the average amount 
of sound political learning among those engaged in 
public employments is less than it was during the 
revolutionary era. It is, however, also to be ob- 
served, that, when such learning seems to be spe- 
cially required, the people demand it and secure it. 
Hence the work of framing constitutions, even in 
the new states, has, in its execution, commanded 
the approval of political writers in this country and 
in Europe. And it must, also, be admitted that 
peace and prosperity render sound political learning 
and great experience less necessary, and at the same 
time multiply the number of men who are considered 
eligible to office. Candidates are put in nomination 
and elected because they have been good neighbors, 
honorable citizens, competent teachers of youth, or 
faithful spiritual guides ; or, possibly, because they 
have been successful in business, are of the military 
or of the fire department, or because they are leaders 



292 Liberty and Learning. 

and benefactors of special classes of society. In 
ordinary times these facts are all worthy of consid- 
eration and real deference ; but when, as in the Rev- 
olution, eveiy place of public service is a post of 
responsibility, or sacrifice, or danger, candidates and 
electors will not meet upon these grounds, but, dis- 
regarding such circumstances, the canvass will have 
S23ecial reference to the work to be done. For civil 
employments, political learning and experience are 
required ; and for military posts, skill, sagacity, and 
courage. It may be said that our whole colonial life 
was a preparatory school for the revolutionary con- 
test ; and; therefore, the major part of the enterprise, 
ambition, and patriotism, of the country, was given 
to the training, studies, and pursuits, calculated to 
fit men for so stern a struggle. But now that other 
avenues are inviting in themselves, and promise 
political preferment, we are liable to the criticism 
that our young men, well educated in the schools 
and in a knowledge of the world, are not well 
grounded in political history and constitutional law, 
without which there can be no thorough and com- 
prehensive statesmanship. And, as I pass from this 
branch of my subject, I may properly say that I do 
not seek to limit the number of candidates for public 
oflSce ; for every office is a school, and the public 
itself is a great and wise teacher. Nor do I ask any 



Liberty and Learning. 293 

to abandon the employments and duties, or to neg- 
lect the claims of business and of social life ; but I 
seek to impress upon our youth a sense of the im- 
portance of adding something thereto. The knowl- 
edge of which I have spoken is valuable in the 
ordinary course of public business, and absolutely 
essential in the exigences of political and national 
life. And it is with an eye single to the happiness 
of individuals, and the welfare of the public, that I 
invite my fellow-citizens, and especially the young 
men of the state, to take something from the hours 
of labor, where labor is excessive ; or something from 
amusement, where amusement has ceased to be re- 
creation ; or something from light reading, which 
often is neither true, nor reasonable, nor useful ; or 
something from indolence and dissipation ; and, in 
the minutes and hours thus gained, treasure up val- 
uable knowledge for the circumstances and exigences 
of citizenship and public office. 

II. The claims of business and society are iinfavora- 
ble to political learning. — I assume it to be true of 
Massachusetts that the proportion of freehold farm- 
ers to the whole population is gradually diminishing, 
and that the amount of labor performed by each is 
gradually increasing. From the settlement of the 
country to the commencement of the present cen- 
tury, there was a great deal of privation, hardship, 
25* 



294: Liberty and Learning. 

and positive suffering ; but the claim for continuous 
labor was not exacting. 

The necessary articles of food and clothing were 
chiefly supplied from the land, and the majority did 
not contemplate any great accumulation of worldly 
goods, but sought rather to place their political and 
religious privileges upon a sure foundation. Agri- 
culture was in a rude state, and consequently did 
not furnish steady employment to those engaged in 
it. It is only when there are valuable markets, scien- 
tific, or at least careful cultivation, and large profits, 
that the farmer can use his evenings and long win- 
ters in his profession. These circumstances did not 
exist until the present century ; and we have thus in 
this discussion found both the motive and the oppor- 
tunity for political learning among our ancestors. 

It is also possible that the increased activity of 
business and business men is unfavorable to those 
studies and thoughts that are essential to political 
learning. Commerce and trade are stimulated by 
never-ceasing competition ; and manufacturers are 
not free from the influence of markets, and the neces- 
sity of variety, taste, and skill, in the management 
of their business. If the larger share of the physi- 
cal and mental vigor of a man is given to business, 
his hours of leisure must be hours of relaxation ; and 
to most minds the study of history and of kindred 



Liberty and Learning. 295 

topics is by no means equivalent to recreation. 
Moreover, society presents numerous claims which 
are not easily disregarded. Fashionable life puts 
questions that but few people have the courage to 
answer in the negative. Have you read the last 
novel ? the new play ? the reviews of the quarter ? 
the magazines of the month ? or the greatest satire 
of the age ? These questions have puzzled many 
young men into customary neglect of useful reading, 
that they may not admit their ignorance in the pres- 
ence of those whom they respect or admire. 

But, everything valuable is expensive, and learn- 
ing can be secured only by severe self-sacrifice. 
With our ancestors, after religious culture, historical 
and political reading was next immediately before 
them ; but the youth of this generation who seek 
such learning are compelled to make their way with- 
out deference to the daily customs of society. There 
is no fashionable or tolerated society that invites 
young men to read the history of England prior to 
the time when Macaulay begins. Nor does public 
sentiment recommend De Lolme on the British con- 
stitution, the Federalist, the writings of Jefferson, 
Madison, Marshall, Story, and Webster, upon the 
constitution of the United States, and the practice 
of the government under it. Not but that these 
topics are considered in the higher institutions of 



296 Liberty and Learning. 

learning ; but I address myself to those who have 
enjoyed the advantages of our common schools only, 
where thorough instruction in national and general 
political history cannot be given. This kind of 
learning must be self-acquired, and acquired by some 
temporary sacrifice ; and the sooner, in the case 
of every young man, this sacrifice is contemplated 
and offered, the more acceptable and useful it will 
be. And the acquisition of this kind of learning 
does not, in a majority of cases, admit of delay. It 
should be the work of youth and early manhood. 
The duties of life are so constant and pressing that 
we find it difficult to abstract ourselves and our 
thoughts from the world ; but, from the age of six- 
teen to the age of twenty-five, the attention may be 
concentrated upon special subjects, and their ele- 
ments mastered. 

By the Athenian law, minority terminated at the 
age of sixteen years ; and Demosthenes, at that 
period of his life, commenced a course of self-educa- 
tion by which he became the first orator of Athens, 
and the admiration of the after-world. The father 
of Demosthenes died worth fourteen talents ; and 
the soi;i, though defrauded by his guardians, was, as 
his father had been, enrolled in the wealthiest class 
of citizens ; yet he did not hesitate to subject him- 



Liberty and Learning. 297 

self to the severest mental and physical discipline, in 
preparation for the great life he was to lead. 

*' Demosthenes received, during his youth, the 
ordinary grammatical and rhetorical education of a 

wealthy Athenian It appears also that he 

was, from childhood, of sickly constitution and feeble 
muscular frame ; so that, partly from his own disin- 
clination, partly from the solicitude of his mother, 
he took little part, as boy or youth, in the exercises 

of the palaestra Such comparative bodily 

disability probably contributed to incite his thirst 
for mental and rhetorical acquisitions, as the only 
road to celebrity open. But it at the same time dis- 
qualified him from appropriating to himself the full 
range of a comprehensive Grecian education, as con- 
ceived by Plato, Isokrates, and Aristotle ; an educa- 
tion applying alike to thought, word, and action — 
combining bodily strength, endurance, and fearless- 
ness, with an enlarged mental capacity, and a power 
of making it felt by speech. 

"The disproportion between the physical energy 
and the mental force of Demosthenes, beginning in 
childhood, is recorded and lamented in the inscrip- 
tion placed on his statue after his death De- 
mosthenes put himself under the teaching of Isseus ; 
.... and also profited largely by the discourse of 
Plato, of Isokrates, and others. As an ardent as- 



298 Liberty and Learning. 

pirant, he would seek instruction from most of the 
best sources, theoretical as well as practical — writ- 
ers as well as lecturers. But, besides living teach- 
ers, there was one of the last generation who con- 
tributed largely to his improvement. He studied 
Thucydides with indefatigable labor and attention ; 
according to one account, he copied the whole his- 
tory eight times over with his own hand ; according 
to another, he learnt it all by heart, so as to be able 
to rewrite it from memory, when the manuscript 
was accidentally destroyed. Without minutely 
criticizing these details, we ascertain, at least, 
that Thucydides was the peculiar object of his 
study and imitation. How much the composition of 
Demosthenes was fashioned by the reading of Thu- 
cydides, reproducing the daring, majestic, and im- 
pressive phraseology, yet without the overstrained 
brevity and involutions of that great historian,^ — 
and contriving to blend with it a perspicuity and 
grace not inferior to Lysias, — may be seen illustrated 
in the elaborate criticism of the rhetor Dionysius. 

" While thus striking out for himself a bold and 
original style, Demosthenes had still greater difficul- 
ties to overcome in regard to the external requisites 
of an orator. He was not endowed by nature, like 
-^schines, with a magnificent voice ; nor, like De- 
mades, with a ready flow of vehement improvisation. 



Liberty and Learning. 299 

His thoughts required to be put together by careful 
preparation ; his voice was bad, and even lisping ; 
his breath short ; his gesticulation ungraceful ; more- 
over, he was overawed and embarrassed by the man- 
ifestations of the multitude The energy 

and success with which Demosthenes overcame his 
defects, in such manner as to satisfy a critical as- 
sembly like the Athenians, is one of the most mem- 
orable circumstances in the general history of self- 
education. Repeated humiliation and repulse only 
spurred him on to fresh solitary efforts for improve- 
ment. He corrected his defective elocution by 
speaking with pebbles in his mouth ; he prepared 
himself to overcome the noise of the assembly by 
declaiming in stormy weather on the sea-shore of 
Phalerum ; he opened his lungs by running, and 
extended his powers of holding breath by pronounc- 
ing sentences in marching up-hill ; he sometimes 
passed two or three months without interruption in 
a subterranean chamber, practising night and day 
either in composition or declamation, and shaving 
one-half of his head in order to disqualify himself 
from going abroad." * Yet all this effort and sacri- 
fice were accompanied by repeated and humiliating 
failures ; and it was not until he was twenty-seven 
years of age that the great orator of the world 

* Grote's Hist., vol. xi., p. 266, et seq. 



300 Liberty and Learning. 

achieved his first success before the Athenian as- 
sembly. 

But how can the youth of this age hope to be fol- 
lowers, even at a distance, of Demosthenes, and of 
those his peers, who, by eloquence, poetry, art, 
science, and general learning, have added dignity to 
the race, and given lustre to generations separated 
by oceans and centuries, unless they are animated 
by a spirit of progress, and cheered by a faith that 
shall be manifested in the disposition and the power 
to overcome the obstacles that lie in every one's 
path ? 

Such a course of training requires individual effort 
and personal self-sacrifice. It would not be wise to 
follow the plan of the Athenian orator ; he adapted 
his training to his personal circumstances, and the 
customs of the country. His history is chiefly val- 
uable for the lessons of self-reliance, and the example 
of perseverance under discouragements, that it fur- 
nishes. But it is always a solemn duty to hold up 
before youth noble models of industry, perseverance, 
and success, that they may be stimulated to the work 
of life by the assurance of history that, 

" Not enjoyment, and not sorrow, 
Is our destined end or way ; 
But to act, that each to-morrow 
Find us further than to-day." 



Liberty and Learning. 301 

III. The popular reading of the day does not con- 
tribute essentially to the education of the citizen and 
statesman. — It is not, of course, expected that every 
man is to qualify himself for the life of a statesman ; 
but it does seem necessary for all to be so well in- 
structed in political learning as to possess the means 
of forming a reasonable and philosophical opinion of 
the policy of the government. It is as discreditable 
to the intellect and judgment of a free people to com- 
plain of that which is right in itself, and rests upon 
established principles of right, as to submit without 
resistance or murmur to usurpation or misgovern- 
ment. . I do not mean to undervalue the periodical 
press ; but it must always assume something in re- 
gard to its readers, and in politics it must assume 
that the principles of government and the history 
of national institutions are known and understood. 

But the young man should subject himself to a 
systematic course of training ; and I know of noth- 
ing more valuable in political studies than a thorough 
acquaintance with English history. Our principles 
of government were derived from England ; and it is 
in the history of the mother country that the best 
discussion of principles is found, as in that country 
many of the contests for liberty occurred. But, as 
our government is the outgrowth rather than a copy 
of British principles and institutions, the American 
26 



302 Liberty and Learning. 

citizen is not prepared for his duties until he has 
made himself familiar with American history, in all 
its departments. How ill-suited, then, for the duties 
of citizenship and public life, in the formation of 
taste and habits of thought, is much of the reading 
of the present time ! And I may here call attention 
to the fact that each town in Massachusetts is in- 
vested with authority to establish a public library 
by taxation. This, it seems to me, is one of the most 
important legislative acts of the present decennial 
period ; and, indeed, a public library is essential to the 
view I am taking of the necessity and importance of 
political education. Private libraries exist, but they 
are not found in every house, nor can every person 
enjoy their advantages. Public libraries are open to 
all ; and, when the selection of books is judicious, they 
furnish opportunities for education hardly less to be 
prized than the common schools themselves. The 
public library is not only an aid to general learning, 
a contributor to political intelligence and power, but 
it is an efficient supporter of sound morals, and all 
good neighborhood among men. 

If the public will not offer to its youth valuable 
reading, such as its experience, its wisdom, its 
knowledge of the claims of society, its morality may 
select, shall the public complain if its young men 



Liberty and Learning. 303 

and women are tempted by frivolous and pernicious 
mental occupations ? It is, moreover, the duty of 
the public to furnish the means of self-education, 
especially in the science of government ; and polit- 
ical learning, for the most part, must be gained after 
the school-going period of life has passed. 

Let American liberty be an intelligent liberty, and 
therefore a self-sustaining liberty. Freedom, more 
or less complete, has been found in two conditions 
of life. Man, in a rude state, where his condition 
seemed to be normal, rather than the result of a 
process of mental and moral degeneracy, has often 
possessed a large share of independence ; but this 
should by no means be confounded with what in 
America is called liberty. The independence of the 
savage, or nomad, is manifested in the absence of 
law ; but the liberty of an American citizen is the 
power to do whatever may be beneficial to himself, 
and not injurious to his neighbor nor to the state. 
The first leaves self-protection and self-regulation to 
the individual, while the latter restrains the aggress- 
ive tendencies of all for the security of each. The 
first is natural equality without law ; the second is 
natural equality before the law. With the first, 
might makes right ; with the latter, right makes 
might. With the first, the power of the law, or of 



304 Liberty and Learning. 

the will of an individual or clan, is in the rigor and 
success of execution ; with the latter, the power of 
the law is in the justice of its demand. We, as a 
people, have passed the savage and nomadic state, 
and can return to it only after a long and melancholy 
process of decay and change, out of which ultimately 
might come a new and savage race of men. This, 
then, is not our immediate, even if it be a possible 
danger. But we are to guard against intellectual, 
political, and moral degeneracy. We are, through 
family, religious, and public education, to take se- 
curity of the childhood and youth of the land for the 
preservation of the institutions we have, and for the 
growth, greatness, and justice, of the republic. Lib- 
erty in America, if you will admit the distinction, is 
a growth and not a creation. The institutions of 
liberty in America have the same character. By 
many centuries of trial, struggle, and contest, 
through many years of experience, sometimes joy- 
ous, and sometimes sad, the fact and the institutions 
of liberty in America have been evolved. It has not 
been a work of destruction and creation, but a pro- 
cess of change and progress. And so it must ever be. 
Reformation does not often follow destruction ; and 
they who seek to destroy the institutions of a coun- 
try are not its friends in fact, however they may be 
in purpose. Ignorance can destroy, but intelligence 



Liberty and Learning. 305 

is required to reform or build up. Let the prejudice 
against learning, not common now, but possibly 
existing in some minds, be forever banished. Learn- 
ing is the friend of liberty. Of this America has had 
evidence in her own history, and in her observation 
of the experience of others. The literary institu- 
tions and the cultivated men of America, like Milton 
and Hampden in England, preferred 

*' Hard liberty before the easy yoke 
Of servile pomp." 

It was the intelligence of the country that every- 
where uttered and everywhere accepted the declar- 
ation of the town of Boston, in the revolutionary 
struggle, " We can endure poverty, but we disdain 
slavery.'^ Ignorance is quicksand on which no sta- 
ble political structure can be built ; and I predict 
the future greatness of our beloved state, in those 
historical qualities that outlast the ages, from the 
fact that she is not tempted by her extent of terri- 
tory, salubrity of climate, fertility of soil, or by the 
presence and promise of any natural source of 
wealth, to falter in her devotion to learning and 
liberty. And I anticipate for Massachusetts a career 
of influence beneficial to all, whether disputed or 
accepted, when I reflect that, with less good fortune 
in the presence and combination of learning and lib- 
26* 



306 Liberty and Learning. 

erty, Greece; Rome, Venice, Holland, and England, 
enjoyed power disproportionate to their respective 
populations, territory, and natural resources. And, 
while the object for which we are convened may 
pardon something to local attachments and state 
pride, the day and the occasion ought not to pass 
without a grateful and hearty acknowledgment of 
the interest manifested by other states and sections 
in the cause of general learning, and especially in 
common-school education. The Canadas are our 
rivals ; the states of the West are our rivals ; the 
states of the South are our rivals ; and, were our 
greater experience and better opportunities reck- 
oned against us, I know not that there would be 
much in our systems of education of which we could 
properly boast. It is, indeed, possible that North 
Carolina, untoward circumstances having their due 
weight, has made more progress in education, since 
1840, than any other state of the Union. 

Education is not only favorable to liberty, but, 
when associated with liberty, it is the basis of the 
Union and power of the American states. As cit- 
izens of the republic, we need a better knowledge of 
our national institutions, a better knowledge of the 
institutions of the several states, a more intimate 
acquaintance with one another, and the power of 
judging wisely and justly the policies and measures 



Liberty and Learning. 307 

of each and all. These ends, aided or accomplished 
by general learniug, will so strengthen the Union as 
no force of armies can — will so strengthen the Union 
as that by no force of armies can it be overthrown. 



MASSACHUSETTS SCHOOL FUND. 

[Extract from the Twenty-Second Annual Report of the Secretary of the Board 
of Education.] 

The Massachusetts School Fund was established 
by the Legislature of 1834 (stat. 1834, chap. 169), 
and it was provided by the act that all moneys in 
the treasury on the first of January, 1835, derived 
from the sale of lands in the State of Maine, and 
from the claim of the state on the government of the' 
United States for military services, and not other- 
wise appropriated, together with fifty per centum of 
all moneys thereafter to be received from the sale of 
lands in Maine, should be appropriated to constitute 
a permanent fund, for the aid and encouragement of 
Common Schools. It was provided that the fund 
should never exceed one million of dollars, and that 
the income only should be appropriated to the object 
in view. The mode of distribution was referred to a 
subsequent Legislature. It was, however, provided 
that a greater sum should never be paid to any city 
or town than was raised therein for the support of 
common schools. There are two points in the law 

(308) 



Massachusetts School Fund. 309 

that deserve consideration. First, the object of the 
fund was the aid and encouragement of the schools, 
and not their support ; and secondly, the limit of ap- 
propriation to the respective towns was the amount 
raised by each. There is an apparent inconsistency 
in this restriction when it is considered that the in- 
come of the entire fund would have been equal to 
only forty-three cents for each child in the state 
between the ages of five and fifteen years, and that 
each town raised, annually, by taxation, a larger 
sum ; but this inconsistency is to be explained by 
the fact that the public sentiment, as indicated by 
resolves reported by the same committee for the ap- 
pointment of commissioners on the subject, tended 
to a distribution of money among the towns accord- 
ing to their educational wants. 

As early as 1828, the Committee on Education of 
the House of Representatives, in a Report made by 
Hon. W. B. Calhoun, declared, " That means should 
be devised for the establishment of a fund having in 
view not the support, but the encouragement, of the 
common schools, and the instruction of school teach- 
ers.'^ This report was made in the month of Jan- 
uary, and in February following the same committee 
say : " The establishment of a fund should look to 
the support of an institution for the instruction of 
school teachers in each county in the common- 



310 Massachusetts School Fund. 

wealth, and to the distribution, annually, to all the 
towns, of such a sum for the benefit of the schools 
as shall simply operate as an encouragement to pro- 
portionate efforts on the part of the towns. A fund 
which should be so large as to suflBce for the support 
of the whole school establishment of the state, as is 
the case in Connecticut, would, in the opinion of the 
committee, be rather detrimental than advantageous ; 
it would only serve to draw off from the mass of the 
community that animating interest which will ever 
be found indispensable where a resolute feeling upon 
the subject is wished for or expected. Such a result 
is, in every sense, to be deprecated, and whatever 
may tend to it, even remotely, should be anxiously 
avoided. A fund which should admit of the distri- 
bution of one thousand dollars to any town which 
should raise three thousand dollars, in any manner 
within itself, or in that proportion, would operate as 
a strong incentive to high efforts ; and, if to this 
should be added the further requisition of a faithful 
return to the Legislature, annually, of the condition 
of the schools, the consequences could not be other- 
wise than decidedly favorable." This report was 
accompanied by a bill "for the establishment of the 
Massachusetts Literary Fund." The bill followed 
the report in regard to the proportionate amount of 



Massachusetts School Fund. 311 

the income of the fund to be distributed to the sev- 
eral towns. This bill failed to become a law. 

In January, 1833, the Ilouse of Representatives, 
under an order introduced by Mr. Marsh, of Dalton, 
appointed a committee " to consider the expediency 
of investing a portion of the proceeds of the sales 
of the lands of this commonwealth in a permanent 
fund, the interest of which should be annually ap- 
plied, as the Legislature should from time to time 
direct, for the encouragement of common schools.'' 
The adoption of this order was the incipient measure 
that led to the establishment of the Massachusetts 
School Fund. On the twenty-third of the same 
month, Mr. Marsh submitted the report of the com- 
mittee. The committee acted upon the expectation 
that all moneys then in the treasury derived from 
the sale of public lands, and the entire proceeds of 
all subsequent sales, were to be set apart as a fund 
for the encouragement of common schools ; but. as 
blanks were left in the bill reported, they seem not 
to have been sanguine of the liberality of the Legis- 
lature. The cash and notes on hand amounted to 
$234,418.32, and three and a half millions of acres 
of land unsold amounted, at the estimated price of 
forty cents per acre, to $1,400,000 more ; making 
together a fund with a capital of $1,634,418.32. 
The income was estimated at $98,065.09. It was 



312 Massachusetts School Fund. 

also stated that there were 140,000 children in the 
state between the ages of five and fifteen years, and 
it was therefore expected that the income of the 
fund would permit a distribution to the towns of 
seventy cents for each child between the afore-named 
ages. This certainly was a liberal expectation, com- 
pared with the results that have been attained. The 
distributive share of each child has amounted to only 
about one-third of the sum then contemplated. The 
committee were careful to say, " It is not intended, 
in establishing a school fund, to relieve towns and 
parents from the principal expense of education ; 
but to manifest our interest in, and to give direction, 
energy, and stability to, institutions essential to indi- 
vidual happiness and the public welfare.'' In con- 
clusion, the committee make the following inquiries 
and suggestions : 

" Should not our common schools be brought 
nearer to their constitutional guardians ? Shall we 
not adopt measures which shall bind, in grateful 
alliance, the youth to the governors of the common- 
wealth ? We consider the application, annually, of 
the interest of the proposed fund, as the establish- 
ment of a direct communication betwixt the Legisla- 
ture and the schools ; as each representative can 
carry home the bounty of the government, and bring 
back from the schools returns of gratitude and pro- 



Massachusetts School Fund. 313 

ficiency. They will then cheerfully render all such 
information as the Legislature may desire. A new- 
spirit would animate the community, from which we 
might hope the most happy results. This endow- 
ment would give the schools consequence and char- 
acter, and would correct and elevate the standard of 
education. 

" Therefore, to preserve the purity, extend the 
usefulness, and perpetuate the benefits of intelli- 
gence, we recommend that a fund be constituted, 
and the distribution of the income so ordered as to 
open a direct and more certain intercourse with the 
schools ; believing that by this measure their wants 
would be better understood and supplied, the advan- 
tages of education more highly appreciated and 
improved, and the blessings of wisdom, virtue, and 
knowledge, carried home to the fireside of every 
family, to the bosom of every child.'' The bill re- 
ported by this committee was read twice, and then, 
upon Mr. Marsh's motion, referred to the next Legis- 
lature. 

In 1834, the bill from the files of the last General 
Court to establish the Massachusetts School Fund, 
and so much of the petition of the inhabitants of 
Seekonk as related to the same subject, were referred 
to the Committee on Education. 

In the month of February, Hon. A. D. Foster, of 
27 



314 Massachusetts School Fund. 

Worcester, chairman of the committee, made a re- 
port, and submitted a bill which was the basis of the 
law of March 31, 1834. The committee were sensi- 
ble of the importance of establishing a fund for the 
encouragement of the common schools. These insti- 
tutions were languishing for support, and in a great 
degree destitute of the public sympathy. There 
were no means of communication between the gov- 
ernment and the schools, and in some sections towns 
and districts had set themselves resolutely against 
all interference by the state. In 1832, an effort was 
made to ascertain the amount raised for the support 
of schools. Returns were received from only ninety- 
nine towns, showing an annual average expenditure 
of one dollar and ninety-eight cents for each pupil. 

The interest in this subject does not seem to have 
been confined to the Legislature, nor even to have 
originated there. The report of the committee con- 
tains an extract from a communication made by Rev. 
William C. Woodbridge, then editor of the American 
Annals of Education and Instruction. His views were 
adopted by the committee, and they corresponded 
with those which have been already quoted. The 
dangers of a large fund were presented, and the 
example of Connecticut, and some states of the 
West, where school funds had diminished rather 
than increased the public interest in education, was 



Massachusetts School Fund. 315 

tendered as a warning against a too liberal appro- 
priation of public money. On the other hand, Mr. 
Woodbridge claimed that the establishment of a 
fund which should encourage efforts rather than sup- 
ply all wants, and, without sustaining the schools, 
give aid to the people in proportion to their own 
contributions, was a measure indispensable to the 
cause of education. He also referred to the expe- 
rience of New Jersey, which had made a general 
appropriation to be paid to those towns that should 
contribute for the support of their own schools ; but, 
such was the public indifference, that after many 
years the money was still in the treasury. Hence it 
was inferred that all these measures were ineffectual, 
and that mere taxation was, upon the whole, to be 
preferred to any imperfect system. But the example 
of New York was approved, where the distribution 
of a small sum, equal to about twenty cents for each 
pupil, had increased the public interest, and wrought 
what then seemed to be an effectual and permanent 
revolution in educational affairs. These facts and 
reasonings, say the committee, seem to be important 
and sound, and to result in this, — that no provision 
ought to be made which shall diminish the present 
amount of money raised by taxes for the schools, or 
the interest felt by the people in their prosperity ; 
that a fund may be so used as satisfactorily to in- 



316 Massachusetts School Fund. 

crease both — and that further information in regard 
to our schools is requisite to determine the best mode 
of doing this. These opinions are supported gener- 
ally by the judgment of the present generation. Yet 
it is to be remarked, by way of partial dissent, that 
the public apathy in Connecticut and the states of 
the West was not in a great degree the effect of the 
funds, but was rather a coexisting, independent fact. 
It ought not, therefore, to have been expected that 
the mere offer of money for educational purposes, 
while the people had no just idea of the importance 
of education or of the means by which it could be 
acquired, would lead them even to accept the prof- 
fered boon ; and it certainly, in their judgment, fur- 
nished no reason for self-taxation. It is, however, no 
doubt true that the power of local taxation for the 
support of schools is in its exercise a means of pro- 
voking interest in education ; and it is reasonable to 
assume that a public system of instruction will never 
be vigorous and efficient at all times and under all cir- 
cumstances where the right of local taxation does not 
exist or is not exercised. When the entire expendi- 
ture is derived from the income of public funds, or 
obtained by a universal tax, and the proceeds dis- 
tributed among the towns, parishes, or districts, 
there will often be general conditions of public senti- 
ment unfavorable, if not hostile, to schools ; and, 



Massachusetts School Fund. 317 

there will always be found in any state, however 
small, local indifference and lethargy which render 
all gifts, donations, and distributions, comparatively 
valueless. The subject of self-taxation annually is 
important in connection with a system of free edu- 
cation. It is the experience of the states of this 
country that the people themselves are more gener- 
ous in the use of this power than are their represent- 
atives ; and it is also true that when the power has 
been exercised by the people, there is usually more 
interest awakened in regard to modes of expendi- 
ture, and more zeal manifested in securing adequate 
returns. The private conversations and public de- 
bates often arouse an interest which would never 
have been manifested had the means of education 
been furnished by a fund, or been distributed as the 
proceeds of a general tax assessed by the govern- 
ment of the state. 

I have no doubt that much of our success is 
due to the fact that in all the towns the question 
of taxation is annually submitted to the people. 
It is quite certain that the sum of our municipal 
appropriations never could have been increased 
from $38Y,124.1Y, in 183t, to $1,341,252.03, in 
1858, without the influence of the statistical tables 
that are appended to the Annual Reports of the 
Board of Education ; and it is also true that the 
27* 



318 Massachusetts School Fund. 

materials for these tables could not have been se- 
cured without the agency of the school fund. Our 
experience as a state confirms the wisdom of the 
reports of 1833 and 1834 ; and I unreservedly con- 
cur in the opinion that a fund ought not to be suffi- 
cient for the support of schools, but that such a fund 
is needed to give encouragement to the towns, to 
stimulate the people to make adequate local appro- 
priations, to secure accurate and complete returns 
from the committees, and finally to provide means for 
training teachers, and for defraying the necessary ex- 
penses of the educational department. The law of 
1834, establishing the school fund, was reenacted in 
the Revised Statutes (chap. 11, sects. 13 and 14). The 
Revised Statutes (chap. 23, sects. 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 
and 67) also required that returns should be made, 
each year, from all the towns of the commonwealth, 
of the condition of the schools in various important 
particulars. The income of the fund was to be ap- 
portioned among the towns that had raised, the pre- 
ceding year, the sum of one dollar by taxation for 
each pupil, and had complied with the laws in other 
respects ; and it was to be distributed according to 
the number of persons in each between the ages of 
four and sixteen years. These provisions have since 
been frequently and variously modified ; but at all 
times the state has imposed similar conditions upon 



Massachusetts School Fund. 319 

the towns. By the statute of 1839, chapter 56, the 
income of the school fund was to be apportioned 
among those towns that had raised by taxation for 
the support of schools the sum of one dollar and 
twenty-five cents for each person between the ages 
of four and sixteen years ; and, by the law of 1849, 
chapter 117, the income was to be apportioned among 
those towns which had raised by taxation the sum of 
one dollar and fifty cents for the education of each 
person between the ages of five and fifteen years. 
This provision is now in force. By an act of the 
Legislature, passed April 15th, 1846, it was provided 
that all sums of money which should thereafter be 
drawn from the treasury, for educational purposes, 
should be considered as a charge upon the moiety of 
the proceeds of the sales of the public lands set apart 
for the purpose of constituting a school fund. This 
provision continued in force until the reorganization 
of the fund, in 1854. By the law of that year (chap. 
300), it was provided that one half of the annual 
income of the fund should be apportioned and dis- 
tributed among the towns according to the then 
existing provisions of law, and that the educational 
expenses before referred to should be chargeable to 
and paid from the other half of the income of said 
fund. These provisions are now in force. 

The limitation of the act of 1834, establishing the 



320 Massachusetts School Fund. 

fund, and of the Kevised Statutes, was removed by 
the law of 1851, chapter 112, and the amount of the 
fund was then fixed at one million and five hundred 
thousand dollars. By the act of 1854 the principal 
was limited to two millions of dollars. The Consti- 
tutional Convention of 1853 had, with great unanim- 
ity, declared it to be the duty of the Legislature to 
provide for the increase of the school fund to the 
sum of two millions of dollars ; and, though the pro- 
posed constitution was rejected by the people, the 
provision concerning the fund was generally, if not 
universally, acceptable. Under these circumstances, 
the legislature of 1854 may be said to have acted in 
conformity to the known opinion and purpose of the 
state. 

On the 1st of June, 1858, the principal of the fund 
was $1,522,898.41, including the sum of $1,843.68, 
added during the year preceding that date. In this 
statement no notice is taken of the rights of the 
school fund in the Western Kailroad Loan Sinking 
Fund. 

It may be observed that the committee of 1833 
contemplated the establishment of a fund, with a 
capital of $1,634,418.32, and yet, after twenty-five 
years, the Massachusetts School Fund amounts to 
only $1,522,898.41. Its present means of increase 
are limited to the excess of one-half of the annual 



Massachusetts School Fund. 321 

income over the current educational expenses. The 
increase for the year 1856-Y was $4,142.90; and 
for the year 185Y-8, $1,843.68. With this resource 
only, and at this rate of increase, about one hundred 
and sixty years will be required for the augmentation 
of the capital to the maximum contemplated by ex- 
isting laws. But the educational wants of the state 
are such that even this scanty supply must soon 
cease. It is then due to the magnitude of the prop- 
osition for the considerable and speedy increase of 
the school fund, that its necessity, if possible, or 
its utility, at least, should be satisfactorily demon- 
strated ; and it is for this purpose that I have already 
presented a brief sketch of its history in connection 
with the legislation of the commonwealth, and that I 
now proceed to set forth its relations to the practical 
work of public instruction. 

When the fund was instituted, public sentiment in 
regard to education was lethargic, if not retrograd- 
ing. The mere fact of the action of the Legislature 
lent new importance to the cause of learning, in- 
spired its advocates with additional zeal, gave effi- 
ciency to previous and subsequent legislation, and, 
as though there had been a new creation, evoked 
order out of chaos. 

Previous to 1834 there was no trustworthy inform- 
ation concerning the schools of the state. The law 



322 Massachusetts School Fund. 

of 1826, chapter 143, section 8, required each town 
to make a report to the Secretary of the Common- 
wealth, of the amount of money paid, the number of 
schools, the aggregate number of months that the 
schools of each city and town were kept, the num- 
ber of male and female teachers, the whole number 
of. pupils, the number of private schools and acade- 
mies and the number of pupils therein, the amount 
of compensation paid to the instructors of private 
schools and academies, and the number of persons 
between the ages of fourteen and twenty-one years 
who were unable to read and write. The Legislature 
did not provide a penalty for neglect of this provision, 
nor does there seem to have been any just method of 
compelling obedience. The Secretary of the Com- 
monwealth sent out blank forms of returns, and re- 
plies were received from two hundred and fourteen 
towns, while eighty-eight were entirely silent. 

The returns received furnish a series of interesting 
facts for the year 1826. There were one thousand 
seven hundred and twenty-six district schools, sup- 
ported at an expense of two hundred and twenty- 
six thousand two hundred and nineteen dollars and 
ninety cents ($226,219.90), while there were nine 
hundred and fifty-three academies and private schools 
maintained at a cost of $192,455.10. The whole num- 
ber of children attending public schools was 117,186, 



Massachusetts School Fund. 323 

and the number educated in private schools and acad- 
emies was 25,083. The expense, therefore, was 
$7.67 per pupil in the private schools, and only 
$1.93 each in the public schools. These facts are in- 
dicative of the 'condition of public sentiment. About 
one-sixth of the children of the state were educated 
in academies and private schools, at a cost equal to 
about six-sevenths of the amount paid for the educa- 
tion of the remaining- five-sixths, who attended the 
public schools. The returns also showed that there 
were 2,974 children between the ages of seven and 
fourteen years who did not attend school, and 530 
persons over fourteen years of age who were unable 
to read and write. The incompleteness of these re- 
turns detracts from their value ; but, as those towns 
where the greatest interest existed were more likely 
to respond to the call of the Legislature, it is prob- 
able that the actual condition of the whole state 
was below that of the two hundred and eighty-eight 
towns. The interest which the law of 1826 had 
called forth was temporary ; and in March, 1832, 
the Committee on Education, to whom was referred 
an order with instructions to inquire into the expedi- 
ency of providing a fund to furnish, in certain cases, 
common schools with apparatus, books, and such 
other aid as may be necessary to raise the standard 
of common school education, say that they desire 



324 Massachusetts School Fund. 

more accurate knowledge than could then be ob- 
tained. The returns required by law were in many 
cases wholly neglected, and in others they were 
inaccurately made. In the year 1831 returns were 
received from only eighty-six towns. In order to 
obtain the desired information, a special movement 
was made by the Legislature. The report of the 
committee was printed in all the newspapers that 
published the laws of the commonwealth, and the 
Secretary was directed to prepare and present to the 
Legislature an abstract of the returns which should 
be received from the several towns for the year 1832. 
The result of this extraordinary effort was seen in 
returns from only ninety-nine of three hundred and 
five towns, and even a large part of these were 
confessedly inaccurate or incomplete. They present, 
however, some remarkable facts. 
' The following table, prepared from the returns of 
1832, shows the relative standing and cost of public 
and private schools in a part of the principal towns. 
It appears that the towns named in the table were 
educating rather more than two-thirds of their chil- 
dren in the public schools, at an expense of $2.88 
each, and nearly one-third in private schools, at a 
cost of $12.10 each, and that the total expenditure 
for public instruction was about thirty-six per cent, 
of the outlay for educational purposes. 



Massachusetts School Fund. 



325 



TOWNS. 


m 


rhole No. of Pu- 
pils in the Public 
Schools in the 
course of the yr. 


Ill 


umber of Pupils 
in Academies and 
Private Schools, 
and not attending 
Public Schools. 


stimated amount 
of compensation 
of Instructors of| 
Academies andi 
Private Schools. | 




< 


P^ 


^ 


Z 


W 


Beverly, . . . 


$1,800 00 


580 


28 


490 


$2,365 33 


Bradford, . . 


750 00 


600 


9 


177 


1,725 00 


Danvers, . . 


2,000 00 


873 


6 


150 


1,500 00 


Marblehead, . 


2,200 00 


650 


31 


650 


3,800 00 


Cambridge, . 


3,600 00 


970 


16 


441 


5,732 00 


Med ford, . . 


1,200 00 


284 


6 


151 


2,372 00 


Newton, . . 


1,600 00 


542 


3 


100 


2,975 00 


Amherst, . . 


850 00 


556 


2 


270 


4,600 00 


Springfield, . 


3,600 00 


1,957 


4 


300 


2,500 00 


Greenfield, . 


638 75 


216 


2 


65 


1,400 00 


Dorchester, . 


2,599 00 


613 


15 


124 


1,800 00 


Quincy, . . . 


1,800 00 


465 


7 


106 


2,741 50 


Roxbury, . . 


4,450 00 


836 


12 


313 


8,218 00 


New Bedford, 


4,000 00 


1,268 


15 


537 


6,300 00 


Hingham, . . 


2,144 00 


703 


8 


180 


2,625 00 


Provincetown, 


584 32 


450 


4 


140 


800 00 


Edgartown, . 


450 00 


350 


10 


100 


2,700 00 


Nantucket, . 


2,633 40 


882 


50 


1,084 


10,795 00 


18 Towns, 


$36,894 47 


12,795 


228 


5,378 


$64,948 83 



The evidence is sufficient that the public schools 
were in a deplorable and apparently hopeless con- 
dition. 

The change that has been effected in the eighteen 
towns named may be seen by comparing the follow- 
ing table with the one already given. In 1832, 64 
per cent, of the amount paid for education was ex- 
pended in academies and private schools, while in 
1858 only 24 per cent, was so expended. In the same 
period the amount raised for public schools increased 

from less than thirty-seven thousand dollars to more 

28 



326 Massachusetts School Fund. 

than two hundred and fifty-nine thousand dollars. 
At the first period, the attendance of pupils upon 
academies and private schools was nearly 30 per 
cent, of the whole number, while in 1858 it was only 
8 per cent. The private schools of some of these 
towns were established recently, and are sustained 
in a degree by pupils who are not inhabitants of the 
state, but who have come among us for the pur- 
pose of enjoying the culture which our teachers and 
schools, private as well as public, are able to fur- 
nish. If, as seems probable, the number of foreign 
pupils was less in 1832 than in 1858, the decrease of 
pupils in private schools would be greater than is 
indicated by the tables. The cost of education, as 
it appears by this table, is rather more than thirty 
dollars per pupil in the private schools, and only 
eight dollars and forty-nine cents in the public 
schools. In the following table, Bradford includes 
Groveland, Danvers includes South Danvers, Spring- 
field includes Chicopee, and Roxbury includes West 
Roxbury. This is rendered necessary for the pur- 
poses of comparison, as Groveland, South Danvers, 
Chicopee, and West Roxbury, have been incorpo- 
rated since 1832. 



Massachusetts School Fund. 



327 





Schools 
tax, in- 
nue, and 
len such 
for such 
of sums 


ttending 

-8 — the 

as in 

my one 


it- 


!i 


11 




r Public 
eluding 
us lleve 

opriated 
xclusive 
-houses 


)upils a 
in 1857 

returned 
uring t 


UJ 


li 


li 


TOWNS. 


mount paid fo 
in 1857-8, in 
come of Surp 
of State School 
income is appr 
schools, and e 
paid for schoo 


hole No. of ] 
Public Schools 
largest No. 
attendance d 
term. 


umber of incor 
incorporated 
Private Scho 

1858. 


iii 


1" 

Ui 

pi 




<! 


^ \'i^ 


^ 


w 


Beverly, . . . 


$5,748 20 


1,114 


1 


10 


$100 00 


Bradford, . . 


2,416 47 


513 


2 


84 


1,720 00 


Danvers, . . 


14,829 52 


2,086 


1 


40 


360 00 


Marblehead, . . 


7,311 10 


1,188 


6 


160 


1,390 00 


Cambridge, . . 


37,420 86 


4,710 


14 


400 


15,000 00 


Medford, . . . 


7,794 44 


837 


5 


130 


3,800 00 


Newton, . . . 


12,263 50 


1,138 


8 


308 


22,800 00 


Amherst, . . . 


2,142 80 


536 


5 


121 


3,934 00 


Springfield, . . 


27,324 84 


3,864 


6 




- 


Greenfield, . . 


2,627 50 


589 


2 


25 


1,800 00 


Dorchester, . . 


22,338 51 


1,795 


1 


31 


600 00 


Quincy, .... 


8,861 46 


1,260 


2 


20 


225 00 


Roxbury, . . 


50,000 00 


4,400 


25 


561 


10,600 00 


New Bedford, . 


36,074 25 


3,548 


20 


434 


15,074 00 


Hingham, . . . 


4,904 13 


728 


2 


71 


1,717 56 


Provincetown, . 


3,147 26 


689 


_ 


_ 


_ 


Edgartown, . . 


2,578 63 


380 


8 


96 


200 00 


Nantucket, . . 


11,596 27 


1,198 
30,553 


13 


259 


3,466 23 


Totals, . . . 


$259,379 74 


121 


2,750 


$82,786 79 



The Legislature of 1834 acted with wisdom and 
energy. The school fund having been established, 
the towns were next required to furnish answers to 
certain questions that were substituted for the requi- 
sition of the statute of 1826, and any town whose 
committee failed to make the return was to be de- 
prived of its share of the income of the school fund, 



328 Massachusetts School Fund. 

whenever it should be first distributed. (Res. 1834, 
chap. IS.) 

Those measures were in the highest degree salu- 
tary. There were 305 towns in the state, and re- 
turns were received from 261. There was still a 
want of accuracy and completeness ; but from this 
time forth the state secured what had never before 
been attained, — intelligent legislation by the gov- 
ernment, and intelligent cooperation and support by 
the people. 

In December, 1834, the Secretary of the Com- 
monwealth prepared an aggregate of the returns 
received, of which the following is a copy : 

Number of towns from whicli returns have been received, . 261 

Number of school districts, 2,251 

Number of male children attending school from four to sixteen 

years of age, 67,499 

Number of female children attending school from four to sixteen 

years of age, 63,728 

Number over sixteen and under twenty-one unable to read and 

write, 158 

Number of male instructors, 1,967 

Number of female instructors, 2,388 

Amount raised by tax to support schools, .... $810,178 87 
Amount raised by contribution to support schools, . . 15,141 25 
Average number of scholars attending academies and private 

schools, 24,749 



Massachusetts School Fund. 329 

Estimated amount paid for tuition in academies and private 

schools, f 276, 575 75 

Local funds — Yes, 71 

Local funds — No, 181 

Thus, by the institution of the school fund, pro- 
vision was made for a system of annual returns, from 
which has been drawn a series of statistical tables, 
that have not only exhibited the school system as a 
whole and in its parts, but have also contributed 
essentially to its improvement. 

These statistics have been so accurate and com- 
plete, for many years, as to furnish a safe basis for 
legislation ; and they have at the same time been 
employed by the friends of education as means for 
awakening local interest, and stimulating and en- 
couraging the people to assume freely and bear 
willingly the burdens of taxation. It is now easy 
for each town, or for any inhabitant, to know what 
has been done in any other town ; and, as a con- 
sequence, those that do best are a continual example 
to those that, under ordinary circumstances, might 
be indifferent. The establishment and efficiency of 
the school-committee system is due also to the same 
agency. There are, I fear, some towns that would 
now neglect to choose a school committee, were 
there not a small annual distribution of money by 
28* 



330 Massachusetts School Fund. 

the state ; but, in 1832, the duty was often either 
neglected altogether, or performed in such a manner 
that no appreciable benefit was produced. The su- 
perintending committee is the most important agency 
connected with our system of instruction. In some 
portions of the state the committees are wholly, and 
in others they are partly, responsible for the qualifi- 
cations of teachers ; they everywhere superintend 
and give character to the schools, and by their an- 
nual reports they exert a large influence over public 
opinion. The people now usually elect well-qualified 
men ; and it is believed that the extracts from the 
local reports, published annually by the Board of 
Education, constitute the best series of papers in the 
language upon the various topics that have from 
time to time been considered.* By the publication 

* An eminent friend of education, and an Englishman, speaking 
of tlie reports for the year 1856-7, says : " The views enunciated 
by your local committees, while they have the sobriety indicative 
of practical knowledge, are at the same time enlightened and ex- 
pansive. The writers of such reports must be of inestimable aid 
to your schoolmasters, standing as they do between the teacher 
and the parent, and exercising the most wholesome influence on 
both. Let me remark, in passing, that I am struck with the power 
of composition evinced in these provincial papers. Clear exposi- 
tion, great command of the best English, correctness and even 
elegance of style, are their characteristics." 



Massachusetts School Fund. 331 

of these abstracts, the committees, and indeed the 
people generally, are made acquainted with every- 
thing that has been done, or is at any time doing, 
in the commonwealth. Improvements that would 
otherwise remain local are made universal ; inform- 
ation in regard to general errors is easily commu- 
nicated, and the errors themselves are speedily 
removed, while the system is, in all respects, ren- 
dered homogeneous and efficient. 

Nor does it seem to be any disparagement of 
Massachusetts to assume that, in some degree, she 
is indebted to the school fund for the consistent and 
steady policy of the Legislature, pursued for more 
than twenty years, and executed by the agency 
of the Board of Education. In this period, normal 
schools have been established, which have educated 
a large number of teachers, and exerted a powerful 
and ever increasing influence in favor of good learn- 
ing. Teachers' Institutes have been authorized, and 
the experiment successfully tested. Agents of the 
Board of Education have been appointed, so that it 
is now possible, by the aid of both these means, as 
is shown by accompanying returns and statements, 
to afford, each year, to the people of a majority of the 
towns an opportunity to confer with those who are 
specially devoted to the work of education. In all 
this period of time, the Legislature has never been 



332 Massachusetts School Fund. 

called upon to provide money for the expenses which 
have thus been incurred ; and, though a rigid scru- 
tiny has been exercised over the expenditures of the 
educational department, measures for the promotion 
of the common schools have never been considered 
in relation to the general finances of the common- 
wealth. While some states have hesitated, and 
others have vacillated, Massachusetts has had a 
consistent, uniform, progressive policy, which is due 
in part to the consideration already named, and in 
part, no doubt, to a popular opinion, traditional and 
historical in its origin, but sustained and strength- 
ened by the measures and experience of the last 
quarter of a century, that a system of public instruc- 
tion is so important an element of general pros- 
perity as to justify all needful appropriations for its 
support. 

It may, then, be claimed for the Massachusetts 
School Fund, that the expectations of those by 
whom it was established have been realized ; that it 
has given unity and efSciency to the school system ; 
that it has secured accurate and complete returns 
from all the towns ; that it has, consequently, pro- 
moted a good understanding between the Legislature 
and the people ; that it has increased local taxation, 
but has never been a substitute for it ; and that it 
has enabled the Legislature, at all times and in every 



Massachusetts School Fund. 333 

condition of the general finances, to act with freedom 
in regard to those agencies which are deemed essen- 
tial to the prosperity of the common schools of the 
state. 

Having thus, in the history of the school fund, 
fully justified its establishment, so in its history we 
find sufficient reasons for its sacred preservation. 
While other communities, and even other states, 
have treated educational funds as ordinary revenue, 
subject only to an obligation on the part of the pub- 
lic to bestow an annual income on the specified 
object, Massachusetts has ever acted in a fiduciary 
relation, and considered herself responsible for the 
principal as well as the income of the fund, not only 
to this generation, but to every generation that shall 
occupy the soil, and inherit the name and fame of 
this commonwealth. 

It only remains for me to present the reasons 
which render an increase of the capital of the fund 
desirable, if not necessar}'-. The annual income of 
the existing fund amounts to about ninety-three 
thousand dollars, one-half of which is distributed 
among the towns and cities, in proportion to the 
number of persons in each between the ages of five 
and fifteen years. The distribution for the year 
185t-8 amounted to twenty cents and eight mills 
for each child. The following table shows the annual 



334 Massachusetts School Fund. 

distribution to the towns from the year 1836 ; the 
whole number of children for each year except 1836 
and 1840, when the entire population was the basis; 
and the amount paid on account of each child since 
the year 1849, when the law establishing the present 
method of distribution was enacted : 



Year. 


Children. 


Income. 


Income 

per 
pupil. 


Year. 


Children. 


Income. 


Per Pu- 
pil in 

Cents & 
Mills. 


1836. 
1837. 
1838. 
1839. 
1840. 
1841. 
1842. 
1843. 
1844. 
1845. 
1846. 
1847. 


473,684 
160,676 
174,984 
180,070 
701,331 
179,967 
179,917 
173,416 
158,193 
170,823 
195,032 
197,475 


$16,230 57* 
19,002 74t 
19,970 47 
21,358 81 
21,202 64t 
32,109 32§ 
24,006 89 
24,094 87 
22,932 71 
28,248 35 
30,150 27 
34,511 89 


- 


1848. 
|1849. 
1850. 
Il851. 
■1852. 
1853. 
1854. 
il855. 
1856. 
:1857. 
1858. 


210,403 
210,770 
182,003 
192,849 
198,050 
199,292 
202,102 
210,761 
221,902 
220,336 
222,860 


$33,874 87 
33,723 20 
37,370 5111 
41,462 54 
44,066 12 
46,908 10 
48,504 48 
46,788 94 
44,842 75 
46,783 64 
46,496 19 


.205 
.215 
.222 
.235 
.240 
.222 
.202 
.212 
.208 



* Distributed among the cities and towns, according to an Act of 1835. (Stat. 
138, § 2.) 

t Distributed among the cities and towns, according to the number of persons 
in each between the ages of four and sixteen years. (Rev. Stat., chap. 23, 
§67.) 

J Income distributed among the cities and towns, according to population, 
under an Act passed Feb. 22, 1840. (Stat. 1840, chap. 7.) This act was re 
pealed by an act passed Feb. 8, 1841. (Stat. 1841, chap. 17, § 2.) 

§ Distributed among the cities and towns, according to the number of persons 
in each between the ages of four and sixteen years. (Stat. 1841, chap. 17> 
§2.) 

II Distributed among the cities and towns, according to the number of per- 
sons in each between the ages of five and fifteen years. (Stat. 1849, chap. 
117, § 2.) 



Massachusetts School Fund. 335 

It was contemplated by the founders of the school 
fund that an amount might safely be distributed 
among the towns equal to one-third of the sums 
raised by taxation, but the state is really furnishing 
only one-thirtieth of the annual expenditure. A dis- 
tribution corresponding to the original expectation 
is neither desirable nor possible ; but a substantial 
addition might be made without in any degree dimin- 
ishing the interest of the people, or relieving them 
from taxation. The income of the school fund has 
been three times used as a means of increasing the 
appropriations in the towns. It is doubtful whether, 
without an addition to the fund, this power can be 
again applied ; and yet there are, according to the 
last returns, twenty-two towns that do not raise a 
sum for schools equal to $2.50 for each child between 
the ages of five and fifteen years ; and there are 
fifty-two towns whose appropriations are less than 
three dollars. When the average annual expendi- 
ture is over six dollars, the minimum ought not to 
be less than three. 

It is to be considered that, as population increases, 
the annual personal distribution will diminish, and 
consequently that the bond now existing between 
the Legislature and people will be weakened. More- 
over, any definite sum of money is worth less than it 
was twenty years ago ; and it is reasonably certain 



336 Massachusetts School Fund. 

that the same sum will be less valuable in 1860, and 
yet less valuable in 18*70, than it is now. Hence, if 
the fund remain nominally the same, it yet suffers a 
practical annual decrease. It is further to be pre- 
sumed that the Legislature will find it expedient to 
advance in its legislation from year to year. A small 
number of towns, few or many, may not always ap- 
prove of what is done, and it is quite important that 
the influence of the fund should be sufficient to ena- 
ble the state to execute its policy with uniformity 
and precision. 

As is well known, the expenses of the educational 
department are defrayed from the other half of the 
income of the fund. From this income the forty-eight 
scholarships in the colleges, the Normal Schools, the 
Teachers' Institutes, the Agents of the Board of 
Education, are supported, and the salaries of the 
Secretary and the Assistant-Secretary are paid. As 
has been stated, the surplus carried to the capital of 
the fund in June last was only $1,843.68. The 
objects of expenditure, already named, may be abol- 
ished, but no reasonable plan of economy can effect 
much saving while they exist. It is also reasonably 
certain that the expenses of the department must be 
increased. The law now provides for twelve Teach- 
ers' Institutes, annually, and there were opportuni- 
ties during the present year for holding them ; but, 



Massachusetts School Fund. 337 

in order that one agent might be constantly em- 
ployed, and a second employed for the term of six 
months, I limited the number of sessions to ten. 

The salaries of the teachers in the Normal Schools 
are low, and the number of persons employed barely 
adequate to the work to be done. Some change, in- 
volving additional expense, is likely to.be called for 
in the course of a few years. 

In view of the eminent aid which the school fund 
has rendered to the cause of education, with due 
deference to the wisdom and opinions of its founders, 
and with just regard to the existing and probable 
necessities of the state in connection with the cause 
of education, I earnestly favor the increase of the 
school fund by the addition of a million and a half 
of dollars. 

Nor does the proposition for the state to appro- 
priate annually $180,000 in aid of the common 
schools seem unreasonable, when it is considered 
that the military expenses are $65,000, the reform- 
atory and correctional about $200,000, the charitable 
about $45,000, and the pauper expenses nearly $250,- 
000 more, all of which will diminish as our schools 
are year by year better qualified to give thorough 
and careful intellectual, moral, and religious culture. 

This increase seems to be necessary in order that 
the Massachusetts School Fund may furnish aid to 
29 



338 Massachusetts School Fund. 

the common schools during the next quarter of a 
century proportionate to the relative influence ex- 
erted by the same agency during the last twenty-five 
years. Nor will such an addition give occasion for 
any apprehension that the zeal of the people will be 
diminished in the least. Were there to be no in- 
crease of population in the state, the distribution for 
each pupil would never exceed forty cents, or about 
one-fifteenth of the amount now raised by taxation. 

So convinced are the people of Massachusetts of 
the importance of common schools, and so much are 
they accustomed to taxation for their support, that 
there is no occasion to hesitate, lest we should fol- 
low the example of those communities where large 
funds, operating upon an uneducated and inexpe- 
rienced popular opinion, have injured rather than 
benefited the public schools. The ancient policy of 
the commonwealth will be continued ; but, whenever 
the people see the government, by solemn act, mani- 
festing its confidence in schools and learning, they 
will be encouraged to guard and sustain the institu- 
tions of the fathers. 



A SYSTEM OF AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 

[An Address before the Barnstable Agricultural Society, Oct. 8, 1867.] 

In the month of February, 1855, a distinguished 
American, who has read much, and acquired, by con- 
versation, observation, and travels in this country 
and Europe, the highest culture of American society, 
wrote these noticeable sentences: ''The farmers have 
not kept pace, in intelligence, with the rest of the 
community. They do not put brain-manure enough 
into their acres. Our style of farming is slovenly, 
dawdling, and stupid, and the waste, especially in 
manure, is immense. I suppose we are about, in 
farming, where the Lowlands of Scotland were fifty 
years ago ; and what immense strides agriculture 
has made in Great Britain since the battle of Water- 
loo, and how impossible it would have been for the 
farmers to have held their own without I" * 

It would not be civil for me to endorse these state- 
ments as introductory to a brief address upon Agri- 
cultural Education ; but I should not accept them at 

*Hon. George S. Hillard. 

(339) 



340 Agricultural Education. 

all did they not contain truth enough to furnish a 
text for a layman's discourse before an assembly of 
farmers. 

Competent American travellers concur in the opin- 
ion that the Europeans generally, and especially our 
brethren of England, Ireland, and Scotland, are far 
in advance of us in scientific and practical agricul- 
ture. This has been stated or admitted by Mr. Col- 
man, President Hitchcock, and last by Mr. French, 
who has recently visited Europe under the auspices 
of the National Agricultural Society. 

There are good reasons for the past and for the 
existing superiority of the Old World ; and there are 
good reasons, also, why this superiority should not 
much longer continue. Europe is old, — America is 
young. Land has been cultivated for centuries in 
Europe, and often by the same family ; its capacity 
tested, its fitness or unfitness for particular crops 
proved, the local and special effects of different fer- 
tilizers well known, and the experience of many gen- 
erations has been preserved, so as to be equivalent to 
a like experience, in time and extent, by the present 
occupants of the soil. 

In America there are no family estates, nor long 
occupation by the same family of the same spot. 
Cultivated lands have changed hands as often as 
every twenty-five years -from the settlement of the 



Agricultural Education. 341 

country. The capacity of onr soils to produce, when 
laboriously and systematically cultivated, has not 
been ascertained ; there has been no accumulation 
of experience by famihes, and but little by the pub- 
lic ; and the effort, in many sections, has been to 
draw as much as possible from the land, while little 
or nothing was returned to it. Farming, as a whole, 
has not been a system of cultivation, which implies 
improvement, but a process of exhaustion. It has 
been easier for the farmer, though, perhaps, not as 
economical, if all the elements necessary to a connect 
opinion could be combined, to exchange his worn-out 
lands for fresh soils, than to adopt an improving sys- 
tem of agriculture. The present has been consulted ; 
the future has been disregarded. As the half-civil- 
ized hunters of the pampas of Buenos Ayres make 
indiscriminate slaughter of the myriads of wild cat- 
tle that roam over the unfenced prairies of the south, 
and preserve the hides only for the commerce and 
comfort of the world, so we have clutched from 
nature whatever was in sight or next at hand, re- 
gardless of the actual and ultimate wrong to physical 
and vegetable life ; and, as the pioneers of a better 
civilization now gather up the bones long neglected 
and bleaching under tropical suns and tropical rains, 
and by the agency of trade, art, and industry, extort 
more wealth from them than was originally derived 
29* 



342 Agricultural Education. 

from the living animals, so we shall find that worn- 
out lands, when subjected to skilful, careful, scientific 
husbandry, are quite as profitable as the virgin soils, 
which, from the day of the migration into the Con- 
necticut valley to the occupancy of the Missouri and 
the Kansas, have proved so tempting to our ances- 
tors and to us. But there has been some philosophy, 
some justice, and considerable necessity, in the course 
that has been pursued. Subsistence is the first de- 
sire ; and, in new countries where forests are to be 
felled, dwellings erected, public institutions estab- 
lished, roads and bridges built, settlers cannot be 
expected, in the cultivation of the land, to look 
much beyond the present moment. And they are 
entitled to the original fertility of the soil. Europe 
passed through the process of settlement and ex- 
haustion many centuries ago. Her recovery has 
been the work of centuries, — ours may be accom- 
plished in a few years, even within the limits of a 
single life. The faot from which an improving sys- 
tem of agriculture must proceed is apparent in the 
northern and central Atlantic states, and is, in a 
measure, appreciated in the West. We have all 
heard that certain soils were inexhaustible. The 
statement was first made of the valley of the Con- 
necticut, then of the Genesee country, then of 
Ohio, then of Illinois, and occasionally we now hear 



Agricultural Education. 343 

similar statements of Kansas, or California, or the 
valley of the Willamette. In the nature of things 
these statements were erroneous. The idea of soil, 
in reason and in the use of the word, contains the 
idea of exhaustion. Soil is not merely the upper 
stratum of the earth ; it is a substance which pos- 
sesses the power, under certain circumstances, of 
giving up essential properties of its own for the 
support of vegetable and ultimately of animal life. 
What it gives up it loses, and to the extent of its 
loss it is exhausted. It is no more untrue to say 
that the great cities of the world have not, in their 
building, exhausted the forests and the mines to any 
extent, than to say that the annual abundant har- 
vests of corn and wheat have not, in any degree, 
exhausted the prairies and bottom lands of the West. 
Some lands may be exhausted for particular crops in 
a single year ; others in five years, others in ten, 
while others may yield undiminished returns for 
twenty, fifty, or even a hundred years. But it is 
plain that annual cropping without rotation, and 
without compensation by nature or art, must finally 
deprive the soil of the required elements. Nor should 
we deceive ourselves by considering only those ex- 
ceptions whose existence is due to the fact that 
nature makes compensation for the loss. Annual or 
occasional irrigation with rich deposits, — as upon 



344 Agricultural Education. 

the Nile and the Connecticut, ^- allowing the land to 
lie fallow, rotation of crops and the growth of wood, 
are so many expedients and provisions by which 
nature increases the productiveness of the earth. 
Nor is a great depth of soil, as two, five, ten, or 
twenty feet, any security against its ultimate impov- 
erishment. Only a certain portion is available. It 
has been found in the case of coal-mines which lie at 
great depths, that they are, for the present, value- 
less ; and we cannot attach much importance to soil 
that is twenty feet below the surface. Neither cul- 
tivation nor vegetation can go beyond a certain 
depth ; and wherever vegetable life exists, its ele- 
ments are required and appropriated. Great depth 
of soil is desirable ; but, with our present knowledge 
and means of culture, it furnishes no security against 
ultimate exhaustion. 

The fact that all soils are exhaustible establishes 
tlie necessity for agricultural education, by whose 
aid the processes of impoverishment may be limited 
in number and diminished in force ; and the realiza- 
tion of this fact by the public generally is the only 
justification necessary for those who advocate the 
immediate application of means to the proposed end. 

And, gentlemen, if you will allow a festive day to 
be marred by a single word of criticism, I feel con- 
strained to say, that a great obstacle to the in- 



Agricultural Education. 345 

creased usefulness, further elevation, and higher 
respectability, of agriculture, is in the body of farm- 
ers themselves. And I assume this to be so upon 
the supposition that agriculture is not a cherished 
pursuit in many farmers' homes ; that the head of 
the family often regards his life of labor upon 
the land as a necessity from which he would wil- 
lingly escape ; that he esteems other pursuits as at 
once less laborious, more profitable, and more honor- 
able, than his own ; that children, both sons and 
daughters, under the influence of parents, both 
father and mother, receive an education at home, 
which neither school, college, nor newspaper, can 
counteract, that leads them to abandon the land for 
the store, the shop, the warehouse, the professions, 
or the sea. 

The reasonable hope of establishing a successful 
system of agricultural education is not great where 
such notions prevail. 

Agriculture is not to attain to true practical dig- 
nity by the borrowed lustre that eminent names, 
ancient and modern, may have lent to it, any more 
than the earth itself is warmed and made fruitful by 
the aurora borealis of an autumn night. Our system 
of public instruction, from the primary school to the 
college, rests mainly upon the public belief in its im- 
portance, its possibility, and its necessity. It is 



346 Agricultural Education. 

easy on a professional holiday to believe in the 
respectability of agriculture ; but is it a living sen- 
timent, controlling your conduct, and inspiring you 
with courage and faith in your daily labor ? Does 
it lead you to contemplate with satisfaction the 
prospect that your son is to be a farmer also, and 
that your daughter is to be a ftirmer's wife ? These, 
I imagine, are test questions which not all farmers 
nor farmers' wives can answer in the affirmative. 
Else, why the custom among farmers' sons of mak- 
ing their escape, at the earliest moment possible, 
from the labors and restraints of the farm ? Else, 
why the disposition of the farmer's daughter to ac- 
cept other situations, not more honorable, and in 
the end not usually more profitable, than the place 
of household aid to the business of the home ? How, 
then, can a system of education be prosperous and 
efficient, when those for whom it is designed neither 
respect their calling nor desire to pursue it ? You 
will not, of course, imagine that I refer, in these 
statements, to all farmers ; there are many excep- 
tions ; but my own experience and observation lead 
me to place confidence in the fitness of these re- 
marks, speaking generally of the farmers of New 
England. It is, however, true, and the statement 
of the truth ought not to be omitted, that the prev- 
alent ideas among us are much in advance of what 



Agricultural Education. 347 

they were ten years ago. In what has been accom- 
plished we have ground for hope, and even security 
for further advancement. 

I look, then, first and chiefly to an improved home 
culture, as the necessary basis of a system of agri- 
cultural education. Christian education, culture, and 
life, depend essentially upon the influences of home ; 
and we feel continually the importance of kindred 
influences upon our common school system. 

It will not, of course, be wise to wait, in the 
establishment of a system of agricultural education, 
until we are satisfied that every farmer is prepared 
for it ; in the beginning sufficient support may be 
derived from a small number of persons, but in the 
end it must be sustained by the mass of those inter- 
ested. Other pursuits and professions must meet 
the special claims made upon them, and in the matter 
of agricultural education they cannot be expected 
to do more than assent to what the farmers them- 
selves may require. 

An important part of a system of agricultural 
education has been, as it seems to me, already 
established. I speak of our national, state, county, 
and town associations for the promotion of agri- 
culture. The first three may educate the people 
through their annual fairs, by their publications, 
and by the collection and distribution of rare seeds. 



348 Agricultural Education. 

plants, and animals, that are not usually within reach 
of individual farmers. By such means, and others 
less noticeable, these agencies can exert a powerful 
influence upon the farmers of the country ; but their 
thorough, systematic education must be carried on 
at home. And for local and domestic education I 
think we must rely upon our public schools, upon 
town clubs or associations of farmers, and upon 
scientific men who may be appointed by the govern- 
ment to visit the towns, confer with the people, and 
receive and communicate information upon the agri- 
cultural resources and defects of the various locali- 
ties. It will be observed that in this outline of a 
plan of education I omit the agricultural college. 
This omission is intentional, and I will state my 
reasons for it. I speak, however, of the present ; 
the time may come when such an institution will be 
needed. In Massachusetts, Mr. Benjamin Bussey 
has made provision for a college at Roxbury, and 
Mr. Oliver Smith has made similar provision for a 
college at Northampton ; but these bequests will not 
be available for many j^ears. In England, Ireland, 
Scotland, France, Belgium, Prussia, Russia, Austria, 
and the smaller states of Europe, agricultural schools 
and colleges have been established ; and they appear 
to be the most numerous where the ignorance of the 
people is the greatest. England has five colleges 



Agricultural Education. 349 

and schools, Ireland sixty-three, while Scotland has 
only a professorship in each of her colleges at Aber- 
deen and Edinburgh. In France, there are seventy- 
five agricultural schools ; but in seventy of them — 
called inferior schools — the instruction is a com- 
pound of that given in our public schools and the 
discipline of a good farmer upon his land, with some 
special attention to agricultural reading and farm 
accounts. Such schools are not desired and would 
not be patronized among us. When an agricultural 
school is established, it must be of a higher grade, 
— it must take rank with the colleges of the country. 
President Hitchcock, in his report, published in 
1851, states that six professors would be required ; 
that the first outlay would be sixty-seven thousand 
dollars, and that the annual expense would be six 
thousand and two hundred dollars. By these ar- 
rangements and expenditures he contemplates the 
education of one hundred students, who are to pay 
annually each for tuition the sum of forty dollars. 
It was also proposed to connect an agricultural de- 
partment with several of the existing academies, at 
an annual expense of three thousand dollars more. 
These estimates of cost seem low, nor do I find in 
this particular any special objection to the recom- 
mendation made by the commissioners of the govern- 
30 



350 Agricultural Education. 

ment ; any other scheme is likely to be quite as 
expensive in the end. 

My chief objection is, that such a plan is not com- 
prehensive enough, and cannot, in a reasonable time, 
sensibly affect the average standard of agricultural 
learning among us. The graduation of fifty students 
a year would be equal to one in a thousand or fifteen 
hundred of the farmers of the state ; and in ten 
years there would not be one professionally educated 
farmer in a hundred. We are not, of course, to 
overlook the indirect influence of such a school, 
through its students annually sent forth : the better 
modes of culture adopted by them would, to some 
extent, be copied by others ; nor are we to overlook 
the probability of a prejudice against the institution 
and its graduates, growing out of the republican 
ideas of equality prevailing among us. But the 
struggle against mere prejudice would be an honor- 
able struggle, if, in the hour of victory, the college 
could claim to have reformed and elevated materially 
the practices and ideas of the farmers of the country. 
I fear that even victory under such circumstances 
would not be complete success. An institution 
established in New England must look to the exist- 
ing peculiarities of our country, rather than venture 
at once upon the adoption of schemes that may have 
been successful elsewhere. Here every farmer is a 



Agricultural Education. 351 

laborer himself, employing usually from one to three 
hands, and they are often persons who look to the 
purchase and cultivation of a farm on their own 
account ; while in England the master farmer is an 
overseer rather than a laborer. The number of men 
in Europe who own land or work it on their own 
account is small ; the number of laborers whose 
labors are directed by the proprietors and farmers is 
quite large. Under these circumstances, if the few 
are educated, the work will go successfully on ; 
while here, our agricultural education ought to reach 
the great body of those who labor upon the land. 
Will a college in each state answer the demand for 
agricultural education now existing? Is it safe in 
any country, or in any profession or pursuit, to 
educate a few, and leave the majority to the indirect 
iniauence of the culture thus bestowed ? And is it 
philosophical, in this country, where there is a 
degree of personal and professional freedom such as 
is nowhere else enjoyed, to found a college or higher 
institution of learning upon the general and admitted 
ignorance of the people in the given department ? 
or is it wiser, by elementary training and the univer- 
sal diffusion of better ideas, to make the establish- 
ment of the college the necessity of the culture 
previously given ? Every new school, not a college, 
makes the demand for the college course greater 



352 Agricultural Education. 

than it was before ; and the advance made in our 
public schools increases the students in the colleges 
and the university. We build from the primary- 
school to the college ; and without the primary 
school and its dependents, — the grammar, high 
school, and academy, — the colleges would cease to 
exist. This view of education supports the state- 
ment that an agricultural college is not the founda- 
tion of a system of agricultural training, but a 
result that is to be reached through a preliminary 
and elementary course of instruction. What shall 
that course be ? I say, first, the establishment of 
town or neighborhood societies of farmers and others 
interested in agriculture. These societies ought to 
be auxiliary to the county societies, and they never 
can become their rivals or enemies unless they are 
grossly perverted in their management and pur- 
poses. As such societies must be mutual and 
voluntary in their character, they can be established 
in any town where there are twenty, ten, or even 
five persons who are disposed to unite together. Its 
object would, of course, be the advancement of 
practical agriculture ; and it would look to theories 
and even to science as means only for the attainment 
of a specified end. The exercises of such societies 
would vary according to the tastes and plans of 
the members and directors; but they would naturally 



Agricultural Education. 353 

provide for discussions and conversations among 
themselves, lectures from competent persons, the 
establishment of a library, and for the collection of 
models and drawings of domestic animals, models of 
varieties of fruit, specimens of seeds, grasses, and 
grains, rocks, minerals, and soils. The discussions 
and conversations would be based upon the actual 
observation and experience of the members ; and 
agriculture would at once become better under- 
stood and more carefully practised by each person 
who intended to contribute to the exercises of the 
meeting. 

Until the establishment of agricultural journals, 
there were no means by which the results of individ- 
ual experience could be made known to the mass of 
farmers ; and, even now, men of the largest experi- 
ence are not the chief contributors. 

Wherever a local club exists, it is always possible 
to compare the knowledge of the different members ; 
and the results of such comparison may, when deemed 
desirable, be laid before the public at large. It is 
also in the power of such an organization thoroughly 
and at once to test any given experiment. The 
attention of this section of the country has been 
directed to the culture of the Chinese sugar-cane ; 
and merchants, economists, and statesmen, as well 
as the farmers themselves, are interested in the 
30* 



354 Agricultural Education. 

speedy and satisfactory solution of so important an 
industrial problem. Had the attention of a few 
local societies in different parts of New England 
been directed to the culture, with special reference 
to its feasibility and profitableness, a definite result 
might have been reached the present year. The 
growth of flax, both in the means of cultivation and 
in economy, is a subject of great importance. Many 
other crops might also be named, concerning which 
opposite, not to say vague, opinions prevail. The 
local societies may make these trials through the 
agency of individual members better than they can 
be made by county and state societies, and better 
than they can usually be made upon model or 
experimental farms. It will often happen upon 
experimental farms that the circumstances do not 
correspond to the condition of things among the 
farmers. The combined practical wisdom of such 
associations must be very great ; and I have but to 
refer to the published minutes of the proceedings 
of the Concord Club to justif}^ this statement in its 
broadest sense. The meetings of such a club have 
all the characteristics of a school of the highest 
order. Each member is at the same time a teacher 
and a pupil. The meeting is to the farmer what the 
court-room is to the lawyer, the hospital to the 



Agricultural Education. 355 

physician, and the legislative assembly to the states- 
man. 

Moot courts alone will not make skilful lawyers ; 
the manikin is but an indifferent teacher of anatomy ; 
and we may safely say that no statesman was ever 
made so by books, schools, and street discussions, 
without actual experience in some department of 
government. 

It is, of course, to be expected that an agricultural 
college would have the means of making experi- 
ments ; but each experiment could be made only 
under a single set of circumstances, while the agency 
of local societies, in connection with other parts of 
the plan that I have the honor diffidently to present, 
would convert at once a county or a state into an 
experimental farm for a given time and a given pur- 
pose. The local club being always practical and 
never theoretical, dealing with things always and 
never with signs, presenting only facts and never 
conjectures, would, as a school for the young farmer, 
be quite equal, and in some respects superior, to 
any that the government can establish. But, it 
may be asked, will you call that a school which is 
merely an assembly of adults without a teacher ? I 
answer that technically it is not a school, but that 
in reality such an association is a school in the best 
use of the word. A school is, first, for the develop- 



356 Agricultural Education. 

ment of powers and qualities whose germs already 
exist ; then for the acquisition of knowledge pre- 
viously possessed by others ; then for the prosecution 
of original inquiries and investigations. The asso- 
ciations of which I speak would possess all these 
powers, and contemplate all these results ; but that 
their powers might be more efficient, and for the 
advancement of agriculture generally, it seems to me 
fit and proper for the state to appoint scientific and 
practical men as agents of the Board of Agriculture, 
and lecturers upon agricultural science and labor. 
If an agricultural college were founded, a farm would 
be ^required, and at least six professors would be 
necessary. Instead of a single farm, with a hundred 
young men upon it, accept gratuitously, as you 
would no doubt have opportunity, the use of many 
farms for experiments and repeated trials of crops, 
and, at the same time, educate, not a hundred only, 
but many thousand young men, nearly as well in 
theory and science, and much better in practical 
labor, than they could be educated in a college. 
Six professors, as agents, could accomplish a large 
amount of necessary work ; possibly, for the pres- 
ent, all that would be desired. Assume, for this 
inquiry, that Massachusetts contains three hundred 
agricultural towns ; divide these towns into sections 
of fifty each ; then assign one section to each agent, 



Agricultural Education. 357 

with the understanding that his work for the year is 
to be performed in that section, and then that he is 
to be transferred to another. By a rotation of 
appointments and a succession of labors, the varied 
attainments of the lecturers would be enjoyed by the 
whole commonwealth. But, it may be asked, what, 
specifically stated, shall the work of the agents be ? 
Only suggestions can be offered in answer to this 
inquiry. An agent might, in the summer season, 
visit his fifty towns, and spend two days in each. 
While there, he could ascertain the kinds of crops, 
modes of culture, nature of soils, practical excel- 
lences, and practical defects, of the farmers ; and 
he might also provide for such experiments as he 
desired to have made. It would, likewise, be in his 
power to give valuable advice, where it might be 
needed, in regard to farming proper, and also to the 
erection and repair of farm-buildings. I am satisfied 
that a competent agent would, in this last particular 
alone, save to the people a sum equal to the entire 
cost of his services. After this labor was accom- 
plished, eight months would remain for the prepara- 
tion and delivery of lectures in the fifty towns 
previously visited. These lectures might be deliv- 
ered in each town, or the agent might hold meetings 
of the nature of institutes in a number of towns 
centrally situated. In either case, the lectures would 



358 Agricultural Education. 

be at once scientific and practical ; and their prac- 
tical character would be appreciated in the fact that 
a judicious agent would adapt his lectures to the 
existing state of things in the given locality. This 
could not be done by a college, however favorably 
situated, and however well accomplished in the 
material of education. It is probable that the lec- 
tures would be less scientific than those that would 
be given in a college ; but when their superior prac- 
tical character is considered, and when we consider 
also that they would be listened to by the great body 
of farmers, old and young, while those of the college 
could be enjoyed by a small number of youth only, 
we cannot doubt which would be the most beneficial 
to the state, and to the cause of agriculture in the 
country. 

An objection to the plan I have indicated may be 
found in the belief that the average education of the 
farmers is not equal to a full appreciation of the 
topics and lectures to be presented. My answer is, 
that the lecturers must meet the popular intelli- 
gence, whatever it is. Nothing is to be assumed by 
the teacher ; it is his first duty to ascertain the 
qualifications of his pupils. I am, however, led to 
the opinion that the schools of the country have 
already laid a very good basis for practical instruc- 
tion in agriculture ; and, if this be not so, then an 



Agricultural Educarion. 359 

additional argument will be offered for the most rapid 
advance possible in our systems of education. In 
any event, it is true that the public schools furnish a 
large part of the intellectual culture given in the 
inferior and intermediate agricultural schools of 
Europe. 

The great defect in the plan I have presented is 
this : That no means are provided for the thorough 
education needed by those persons who are to be 
appointed agents, and no provision is made for test- 
ing the qualities of soils, and the elements of grains, 
grasses, and fruits. My answer to this suggestion 
is, that it is in part, at least, well founded ; but that 
the scientific schools furnish a course of study in 
the natural sciences which must be satisfactory to 
the best educated farmer or professor of agricultural 
learning, and that analyses may be made in the 
laboratories of existing institutions. 

It is my fortune to be able to read a letter from 
Professor Horsford, which furnishes a satisfactory 
view of the ability of the Scientific School at 
Cambridge. 

''Cambridge, Sept. 19, 1857. 

" My dear Sir : The occupation incident to the 
opening of the term has prevented an earlier 
answer to your letter of inquiry in regard to the 
Scientific School. 



360 Agricultural Education. 

" The Scientific School furnishes, I believe, the 
necessary scientific knowledge for students of agri- 
culture (such as you mention), *who have been well 
educated at our high schools, academies, or colleges, 
and have also been trained practically in the business 
of farming/ It provides : 

" 1st. Practical instruction in the modes of exper- 
imental investigation. This is, I know, an unrecog- 
nized department, but it is, perhaps, the better suited 
name to the course of instruction of our chemical 
department. It qualifies the student for the most 
direct methods of solving the practical problems 
which are constantly arising in practical agriculture. 
It includes the analysis of soils, the manufacture 
and testing of manures, the philosophy of improved 
methods of culture, of rotation of crops, of dairy 
production, of preserving fruits, meats, &c. It ap- 
plies more or less directly to the whole subject of 
mechanical expedients. 

" 2d. Practical instruction in surveying, mensura- 
tion, and drawing. 

" 3d. And by lectures — in botany, geology, 
zoology, comparative anatomy, and natural phi- 
losophy. 

" Some of them — indeed, all of them, if desired 
" — might be pursued practically, and with the use of 
apparatus and specimens. 



Agricultural Education. - 361 

" This course contemplates a period of study of 
from one year to two and a half years, according to 
the qualification of the pupil at the outset. He ap- 
pears an hour each day at the blackboard, where he 
shares the drill of a class, and where he acquires 
a facility of illustration, command of language, an 
address and thorough consciousness of real knowl- 
edge, which are of more value, in many cases, as 
you know, than almost any amount of simple acqui- 
sition. He also attends, on an average, about one 
lecture a day throughout the year. During the re- 
maining time he is occupied with experimental work 
in the laboratory or field. 

'* The great difiSculty with students of agriculture, 
who might care to come to the Scientific School, is 
the expense of living in Cambridge. If some farmer 
at a distance of three or four miles frotn college, 
where rents for rooms are low, would open a board- 
ing-house for students of agriculture in the Scientific 
School, where the care of a kitchen garden and some 
stock might be intrusted to them, and where a farm- 
er's plain table might be spread at the price at which 
laborers would be received, we might hope that our 
facilities would be taken advantage of on a larger 
scale. As it is, but few, comparatively, among our 
students, come to qualify themselves for farming. '' 
. 31 



362 Agricultural Education. 

I should, however, consider the arrangements pro- 
posed as temporary, and finally to be abandoned or 
made permanent, as experience should dictate. 

It may be said, I think, without disparagement to 
the many distinguished and disinterested men who 
have labored for the advancement of agriculture, 
that the operations of the government and of the 
state and county societies have no plan or sys- 
tem by which, as a whole, they are guided. The 
county societies have been and are the chief means 
of influence and progress ; but they have no power 
which can be systematically applied ; their move- 
ments are variable, and their annual exhibitions 
do not always indicate the condition of agriculture 
in the districts represented. They have become, to 
a certain extent, localized in the vicinity of the towns 
where the fairs are held ; and yet they do not possess 
the vigor which institutions positively local would 
enjoy. 

The town clubs hold annual fairs ; and these fairs 
should be made tributary, in their products and in 
the interest they excite, to the county fairs. Let 
the town fairs be held as early in the season as prac- 
ticable, and then let each town send to the county 
fairs its first-class premium articles as the contribu- 
tions of the local society, as well as of the individual 
producers. Thus a healthful and generous rivalry 



Agricultural Education. 363 

would be stirred up between the towns of a county 
as well as among the citizens of each town ; and a 
county exhibition upon the plan suggested wOuld 
represent at one view the general condition of agri- 
culture in the vicinity. No one can pretend that' 
this is accomplished by the present arrangements. 
Moreover, the county society, in its management and 
in its annual exhibitions, would possess an import- 
ance which it had not before enjoyed. As each town 
would be represented by the products of the dairy, 
the herd, and the field, so it would be represented by 
its men ; and the annual fair of the county would be 
a truthful and complete exposition of its industrial 
standing and power. 

Out of a system thus broad, popular, and strong, 
an agricultural college will certainly spring, if such 
an institution shall be needed. But is it likely that 
in a country where the land is divided, and the num- 
ber of farmers is great, the majority will ever be 
educated in colleges, and upon strict scientific prin- 
ciples ? I am ready to answer that such an expect- 
ation seems to me a mere delusion. The great body 
of young farmers must be educated by the example 
and practices of their elders, by their own eflbrts at 
individual and mutual improvement, and by the influ- 
ence of agricultural journals, books, lecturers, and 
the example of thoroughly educated men. And, as 



S64 Agricultural Education. 

thoroughly educated men, lecturers, journals, and 
books- of a proper character, cannot be furnished 
without the aid of scientific schools and thorough 
culture, the farmers, as a body, are interested in 
the establishment of all institutions of learning which 
promise to advance any number of men, however 
email, in the mysteries of the profession ; but, when 
we design a system of education for a class, common 
wisdom requires us to contemplate its influence upon 
each individual. The influence of a single college in 
any state, or in each state of this Union, would be 
exceedingly limited ; but local societies and travel- 
ling lecturers could make an appreciable impression 
in a year upon the agricultural population of any 
state, and in New England the interest in the sub- 
ject is such that there is no difficulty in founding 
town clubs, and making them at once the agents of 
the government and the schools for the people. 

In the plan indicated, I have, throughout, assumed 
the disposition of the farmers to educate themselves. 
This assumption implies a certain degree of educa- 
tion already attained ; for a consciousness of the 
necessity of education is only developed by culture, 
learning, and reflection. Such being the admitted 
fact, it remains that the farmers themselves ought at 
once to institute such means of self-improvement as 
are at their couxmand. They are, in nearly every 



Agricultural Education. 365 

state of this Uuion, a majority of the voters, aud the 
controlling force of society and the government ; 
but I do not from these facts infer the propriety of a 
reliance on their part upon the powers which they 
may thus direct. However wisely said, when first 
said, it is not wise to "look to the government for 
too much ; '^ and there can be no reasonable doubt 
of the ability of the farmers to institute and perfect 
such measures of self-education as are at present 
needed. But the spirit in which they enter upon 
this work must be broad, comprehensive, catholic. 
They will find something, I hope, of example, some- 
thing of motive, something of power, in their ex- 
perience as friends and supporters of our system of 
common school education ; and something of all 
these, I trust, in the facts that this system is kept 
in motion by the self-imposed taxation of the whole 
people ; that all individuals and classes of men, for- 
getting their differences of opinion in politics and 
religion, rally to its support, as being in itself a safe 
basis on which may be built whatever structures 
men of wisdom and virtue and piety may desire to 
erect, whether they labor first and chiefly for the 
world that is, or for that which is to come. 
31* 



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